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H U D I B R A S 



SAMUEL BUTLEE; 

WITH VARIORUM NOTES, SELECTED PRINCIPALLY 
FROM GREY AND NASH. 

EDITED BY f^^dt ! "-^ 

EENEY G. B-tfllS. 




LONDON : 

BELL & DALDY, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 

1873. 



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PRE 



The edition of Hudibras now submitted to the pub- 
lic is intended to be more complete, though in a smaller 
compass, than any of its numerous predecessors. The 
text is that of Nash, usually accepted as the best ; but 
in many instances — as in the very first line — the au- 
thor's original readings have been preferred. In all 
cases the variations are shown in the foot notes, so that 

e reader may take his choice. 

The main feature, however, of the present edition is 
its notes ; these have been selected with considerable 
diligence and attention from every known source, and 
it is believed that no part of the text is left unexplained 
which was ever explained before. Grey has been the 
great storehouse of information, and next in degree 
Nash, but both have required careful sifting. Other 
editions, numerous as they are, — including Aikin's, the 
Aldine, and Gilfillan's, — have yielded nothing. Mr 
Bell's, which is by far the best, is edited on the same 
principle as the present, and had that gentleman re- 
tained the numbering of the lines, and given an Index, 
there would have been little left for any successor to 
improve. 

A few of the notes in the present selection are, to a 
certain extent, original, arising from some historical and 
bibliographical knowledge of the times, or derived 



from a manuscript key, annexed to a copy of the first 
edition, and attributed to Butler himself. 

The Biographical Sketch of our poet is a mere rifaci- 
mento of old materials, for nothing new is now to be dis- 
covered about him. Diligent researches have been 
made in the parish where he lived and died — Covent 
Garden — without eliciting any new fact, excepting that 
the monument erected to his memory has been de- 
stroyed. 

This volume has been more than two years at press, 
having dribbled through the editor's hands, not during 
his leisure hours or intervals of business, for he never 
had any, but by forced snatches from his legitimate 
pursuits. An old affection for Hudibras, acquired nearly 
half a century ago, at a time when its piquant couplets 
were still familiarly quoted, had long impressed him 
with the desire to publish a really popular edition ; 

Et Ton revient toujours 
A ses premieres amours ; 

the public therefore now have the result. 

It has happened, from the want of consecutive at- 
tention, that two or three notes are all but duplicate, 
such as that on Wicked Bibles at pages 326 and 371 ; 
Mum and Mummery, 385 and 406 ; and, He thatjights 
and runs away, at pages 403 and 106. But the pub- 
lisher hopes that his readers will not quarrel with him 
for ffivino: too much rather than too little. 



Henry G. Bohn. 



York Street, Covent Garden. 
April 28th, 1S59. 




LIST OF THE WOOD CUTS 

IN BUTLER'S HUDLBRAS. 



DESIGNED BY THUBSTON. 



vignette on printed title, engraved by Tlwmpson. 

Then did Sir Knight abandon dwelling, 
And out he rode a colonelling. — 
A Squire he had, whose name was Ealph, 
That in th' adventure went his half. 1. 13, 14, 457-8. 



ENGRAVED TITLE. HEAD OF HUDIBBAS. 
Thus was he gifted and accouter'd, — 
His tawny beard was th' equal grace 
Both of his wisdom and his face ; 
In cut and dye so like a tile, 
A sudden view it would beguile. 

HEAD PIECE, PART I. CANTO I. 

When Gospel-Trumpeter, surrounded 
"With long-ear' d rout, to battle sounded, 
And pulpit, drum ecclesiastick, 
"Was beat with fist, instead of a stick. 



TAIL PIECE, 



PART I. CANTO I. 

he always chose 



To carry vittle in his hose, 
That often tempted rats and mice 
The ammunition to surprise. 

HEAD PIECE, PART I. CANTO II. 

And wing'd with speed and fury, flew 
To rescue Knight from black and blue. 
Which ere he could achieve, his sconce 
The leg encounter' d twice and once ; 
And now 'twas rais'd, to smite agen, 
When Ralpho thrust himself between. 



Thompson. 



1. 237—244. 
White. 



1. 9—12. 



1. 318—321. 
Thompson. 



Vlll 



EMBELLISHMENTS. 



tail piece, paet i. canto ii., engraved by Branston. 

Crowdero making doleful face, 

Like hermit poor in pensive place, 

To dungeon they the wretch commit, 

And the survivor of his feet. 1. 1167—1170. 

HEAD PIECE, PAET I. CANTO III. Branston. 

When setting ope the postern gate, 

To take the field and sally at, 

The foe appear' d, drawn up and drill' d, 

Keady to charge them in the field. 1. 443 — 446. 

TAIL PIECE, PAET I. CANTO III. 

in a cool shade, 

Which eglantine and roses made ; 

Close by a softly murm'ring stream, 

Where lovers us'd to loll and dream : 

There leaving him to his repose. 1. 159 — 163. 



HEAD PIECE, PAET II. 



CANTO I. 

she went 



To find the Knight in limbo pent. 

And 'twas not long before she found 

Him, and his stout Squire, in the pound. 1. 99 — 102. 

tail piece, paet ii. canto I. Branston. 

a tall long-sided dame, — 

But wond'rous light — ycleped Fame, — 

Upon her shoulders wings she wears 

Like hanging sleeves, lin'd thro' with ears. 1. 45—50. 

HEAD PIECE, PAET II. CANTO II. Brcmston. 

With that he seiz'd upon his bladj ; 
And Ealpho too, as quick and bold, 
Upon his basket-hilt laid hold. 1. 560—562. 

tail piece, paet ii. canto ii. Thompson. 

quitting both their swords and reins, 

They grasp'd with all their strength the manes ; 

And, to avoid the foe's pursuit, 

With spurring put their cattle to't. 1. 839—842. 



EMBELLISHMENTS. IX 

hbad piece, paet ii. canto in., engraved by Branston. 

Hudibras, to all appearing, 

Believ'd him to be dead as herring. 

He held it now no longer safe 

To tarry the return of Ralph, 

But rather leave him in the lurch. 1. 1147 — 1151. 



TAIL PIECE, PAET II. CANTO III. White. 

This Sidrophel by chance espy'd, 
And with amazement staring wide : 
Bless us, quoth he, what dreadful wonder 
Is that appears in heaven yonder ? 1. 423—426. 

HEAD PIECE TO THE EPISTLE TO SIDEOPHEL. Byfield. 

Sidrophel perusing Hudibras' Epistle. 

TAIL PIECE TO THE EPISTLE TO SIDEOPHEL. Byfield. 

Gimcracks, whims, and jiggumbobs. 

head PIECE, paet in. canto I. Thompson. 

He wonder" d how she came to know 
What he had done, and meant to do ; 
Held up his affidavit hand, 
As if he 'ad been to be arraign'd. 1. 483 — 486. 

TAIL PIECE, paet ill. CANTO I. Branston. 

H' attack' d the window, storm' d the glass, 
And in a moment gain'd the pass; 
Thro' which he dragg'd the worsted soldier's 
Four-quarters out by th' head and shoulders. 1. 1577—1580. 

head piece, paet in. canto II. Thompson. 

Knights, citizens, and burgesses — 
Held forth by rumps — of pigs and geese. — 
Each bonfire is a funeral pile, 
In which they roast, and scorch, and broil. 1. 1515—1520. 

tail piece, paet in. canto II. Thompson. 

crowded on with so much haste, 

Until they 'd block'd the passage fast, 

And barricado'd it with haunches 

Of outward men, and bulks and paunches. 1. 1669 — 1672 



X EMBELLISHMENTS. 

head piece, part in. canto in., engraved by Hughes. 
To this brave man the Knight repairs 
For counsel in his law-affairs, — 
To whom the Knight, with comely grace, 
Put off his hat to put his case. 1. 621—628. 

TAIL PIECE, PART III. CANTO III. 

With books and money plac'd for show, 
Like nest-eggs to make clients lay. 

HEAD PIECE TO THE EPISTLE TO THE LADY. 

having pump'd up all his wit, 

And humm'd upon it, thus he writ. 

TAIL PIECE TO THE EPISTLE TO THE LADY. 
What tender sigh, and trickling tear, 
Longs for a thousand pounds a year ; 
And languishing transports are fond 
Of statute, mortgage, bill, and bond. 

HEAD PIECE TO THE LADl's ANSWER. 
She cpen'd it, and read it out, 
With many a smile and leering flout. 



TAIL PIECE TO THE LADY S ANSWER. 

We make the man of war strike sail, 
And to our braver conduct veil, 
And, when he 's chas'd his 
Submit to us upon his knees 



VIGNETTE AT PAGE XXIV. 

The dogs beat you at Brentford Fair ; 
Where sturdy butchers broke your noddle, 
And handled you like a fop-doodle. 



VIGNETTE AT PAGE 473. 

the foe beat up his quarters, 

And storm' d the outworks of his fortress ; — 

Soon as they had him at their mercy, Part III. c. 

They put him to the cudgel fiercely. 1. 1135-36. 1147-48. 




THE LIFES^V 
LER. 



The life of a retired scholar can furnish but little matter to 
the biographer : such was the character of Mr Samuel But- 
ler, author of Hudibras. His father, whose name was like- 
wise Samuel, had an estate of his own of about ten pounds 
yearly, which still goes by the name of Butler's tenement ; 
he likewise rented lands at three hundred pounds a year 
under Sir William Bussel, lord of the manor of Strensham, 
in "Worcestershire. He was a respectable farmer, wrote a 
clerk -like hand, kept the register, and managed all the busi- 
ness of the parish. From his landlord, near whose house he 
lived, the poet imbibed principles of loyalty, as Sir William 
was a most zealous royalist, and spent great part of his for- 
tune in the cause, being the only person exempted from the 
benefit of the treaty, when Worcester surrendered to the 
parliament in the year 1646. Our poet's father was elected 
churchwarden of the parish the year before his son Samuel 
was born, and has entered his baptism, dated February 8th, 
1612, with his own hand, in the parish register. He had four 
sons and three daughters, born at Strensham ; the three 
daughters and one son older than our poet, and two sons 
younger : none of his descendants, however, remain in the pa- 
rish, though some are said to be in the neighbouring villages. 
Our author received his first rudiments of learning at 
home ; but was afterwards sent to the college school at 
Worcester, then taught by Mr Henry Bright,*' prebendary 

* Mr Bright is buried in the cathedral church of "Worcester, near the 
north pillar, at the foot of the steps which lead to the choir. He was born 
b 



11 LIFE OE SAMUEL BUTLEB, 

of that cathedral, a celebrated scholar, and many years mas- 
ter of the King's school there ; one who made his profession 
his delight, and, though in very easy circumstances, con- 
tinued to teach for the sake of doing good. 

How long Mr Butler continued under his care is not 
known, but, probably, till he was fourteen years old. There 
can be little doubt that his progress was rapid, for Aubrey 
tells us that " when but a boy he would make observations 
and reflections on everything one said or did, and censure it 
to be either well or ill; " and we are also informed in the 
Biography of 1710 (the basis of all information about him), 
that he " became an excellent scholar." Amongst his school- 
fellows was Thomas Hall, well known as a controversial 
writer on the Puritan side, and master of the free-school at 
King's Norton, where he died ; John Toy, afterwards an 
author, and master of the school at Worcester; William 
Rowland, who turned Eomanist, and, having some talent for 
rhyming satire, wrote lampoons at Paris, under the title of 
Bolandus Palingenius ; and Warmestry, afterwards Dean of 
Worcester. 

1562, appointed schoolmaster 1586, made prebendary 1619, died 1626. 
The inscription in capitals, on a mural stone, now placed in what is called 
the Bishop's Chapel, is as follows : 

Mane hospes et lege, 

Magister HENRICITS BEIGHT, 

Celeberrimus gymnasiarcha, 

Qui scholse regiae istic fundata? per totos 40 annos 

suninia cum laude prsefuit, 

Quo non alter magis sedulus fuit, scitusve, ac dexter, 

in Latinis Greeds Hebraicis litteris, 

feliciter edocendis : 

Teste utraque academia quam instruxit affatim 

numerosa plebe literaria : 

Sed et totidem annis eoque amplius theologiam professus, 

Et hujus ecclesise per septennium canonicus major, 

Saepissime hie et alibi sacrum Dei prseconem 

magno cum zelo et friictu egit. 

Vir pius, doctus, integer, frugi, de republica 

deque ecclesia optime meritus. 

A laboribus per diu noctuque 

ad 1626 strenue usque exantlatis 

4° Martii suaviter requievit 

in Domino. 

See this epitaph, written by Dr Joseph Hall, dean of Worcester, in 

Fuller's Worthies, p. 177- 



AUTHOR OF HUDIBRAS. HI 

Whether he was ever entered at any university is uncer- 
tain. His early biographer says he went to Cambridge, but 
was never matriculated : "Wood, on the authority of Butler's 
brother, says, the poet spent six or seven years there ; but 
there is great reason to doubt the truth of this. Some ex- 
pressions in his works look as if he were acquainted with 
the customs of Oxford, and among them coursing, which 
was a term peculiar to that university (see Part in. c. ii. v. 
1241) ; but this kind of knowledge might have been easily 
acquired without going to Oxford ; and as the speculation is 
entirely unsupported by circumstantial proofs, it may be 
safely rejected. Upon the whole, the probability is that 
Butler never went to either of the Universities. His father 
was not rich enough to defray the expenses of a collegiate 
course, and could not have effected it by any other means, 
there being at that time no exhibitions at the Worcester 
School. 

Some time after Butler had completed his education, he 
obtained, through the interest of the Russels, the situation 
of clerk to Thomas Jefferies, of Earl's Croombe, Esq., an 
active justice of the peace, and a leading man in the busi- 
ness of the province. This was no mean office, but one that 
required a knowledge of law and the British constitution, 
and a proper deportment to men of every rank and occupa- 
tion ; besides, in those times, when large mansions were ge- 
nerally in retired situations, every large family was a com- 
munity within itself: the upper servants, or retainers, being 
often the younger sons of gentlemen, were treated as friends, 
and the whole household dined in one common hall, and had 
a lecturer or clerk, who, during meal-times, read to them 
some useful or entertaining book. 

Mr Jefferies' family was of this sort, situated in a retired 
part of the country, surrounded by bad roads, the master of 
it residing constantly in Worcestershire. Here Mr Butler, 
having leisure to indulge his inclination for learning, pro 
bably improved himself very much, not only in the ab- 
struser branches of it, but in the polite arts : and here he 
studied painting. " Our Hogarth of Poetry," says Walpole, 
" was a painter too ; " and, according to Aubrey, his love ot 
the pencil introduced him to the friendship of that prince of 
painters, Samuel Cooper. But his proficiency seems to have 
b2 



IV LIFE OF SAMUEL BUTLEB, 

been but moderate, for Mr Nash tells us that be recollects 
" seeing at Earl's Croombe, some portraits said to be painted 
by him, which did him no' 3 " great honour as an artist, and 
were consequently used to stop up windows." * He heard 
also of a portrait of Oliver Cromwell, said to be painted by 
him. 

After continuing some time at Earl's Croombe, how long 
is not exactly known, he quitted it for a more agreeable 
situation in the household of Elizabeth Countess of Kent, 
who lived at Wrest, in Bedfordsbire. He seems to have 
been attached to her service,t as one of her gentlemen, to 
whom she is said to have paid £20 a year each. The time 
when he entered upon this situation, which Aubrey says he 
held for several years, may be determined with some degree 
of accuracy by the fact that he found Selden there, and was 
frequently engaged by him in writing letters and making 
translations. It was in June, 1628, after the prorogation of 
the third parliament of Charles I., that Selden, who sat in 
the House of Commons for Lancaster, retired to Wrest for 
the purpose of completing, with the advantages of quiet and 
an extensive library, his labours on the Marmora Arundel- 
liana ; and we may presume that it was during the interval 
of the parliamentary recess, while Selden was thus occupied, 
that Butler, then in his seventeenth year, entered her service. 
Here he enjoyed a literary retreat during great part of the 
civil wars, and here probably laid the groundwork of his Hu- 
dibras, as, besides the society of that living library, Selden, 
he had the benefit of a good collection of books. He lived 

* In his MS. common-place book is the following observation : 
" It is more difficult, and requires a greater mastery of art in painting, to 
foreshorten a figure exactly, than to draw three at their just length ; so it 
is, in writing, to express anything naturally and briefly, than to enlarge 
and dilate : 

And therefore a judicious author's blots 

Are more ingenious than his first free thoughts." 

t The Countess is described by the early biographer of Butler as " a 
great encourager of learning." After the death of the Earl of Kent in 
1639 Selden is said to have been domesticated with her at "Wrest, and in 
her town-house in White Friars. Aubrey affirms that he was married to 
her, but that he never acknowledged the marriage till after her death, on 
account of some law affairs. The Countess died in 1651, and appointed 
Selden her executor, leaving him her house in White Friars. 



ATTHOE OF HTDIBKAS. V 

subsequently in the service of Sir Samuel Luke, of Cople 
Hoo farm, or "Wood End, in that county, and his biographers 
are generally of opinion that from him he drew the charac- 
ter of Hudibras : * but there is no actual evidence of this, 
and such a prototype was not rare in those times. Sir 
Samuel Luke lived at "Wood End, or Cople Hoo farm. Cople 
is three miles south of Bedford, and in its church are still to 
be seen many monuments of the Luke family, who flourished 
in that part of the country as early as the reign of Henry 
VIII. He was knighted in 1624, was a rigid Presbyterian, 
high in the favour of Cromwell : a colonel in the army of 
the parliament, a justice of the peace for Bedford and Sur- 
rey, scoutmaster-general for Bedfordshire, which he repre- 
sented in the Long Parliament, and governor of Newport 
Pagnell. He possessed ample estates in Bedfordshire and 
Northamptonshire, and devoted his fortune to the promotion 
of the popular cause. His house was the open resort of the 
Puritans, whose frequent meetings for the purposes of coun- 
sel, prayer, and preparation for the field, afforded Butler an op- 
portunity of observing, under all their phases of inspiration 
and action, the characters of the men whose influence was 
working a revolution in the country. But Sir Samuel did not 
approve of the king's trial and execution, and therefore, with 
other Presbyterians, both he and his father, Sir Oliver, were 
among the secluded members. It has been generally supposed 
that the scenes Butler witnessed on these occasions sug- 
gested to him the subject of his great poem. That it was at 
this period he threw into shape some of the striking points 
of Jludibras, is extremely probable. He kept a common- 
place book, in which he was in the habit of noting down 
particular thoughts and fugitive criticisms ; and Mr Thyer, 
the editor of his Remains, who had this book in his posses- 
sion, says that it was full of shrewd remarks, paradoxes, and 
witty sarcasms. 

The first part of Hudibras came out at the end of the 
year 1662, and its popularity was so great, that it was pirated 
almost as soon as it appeared.f In the Mercurius Aulieus, 

* See notes at page 4. 

f The first part was ready November 11th, 1662, when the author ob- 
tained an imprimatur, signed J. Berkenhead ; but the date of the title is 
1663, and Sir Roger L'Estrange granted an imprimatur for the second 
part, dated November -5th, 1663. 



VI LIFE OF SAMUEL BTTTEEE, 

a ministerial newspaper, from January 1st to January 8th, 
1662 (1663 N.S.), quarto, is an advertisement saying, that 
" there is stolen abroad a most false and imperfect copy of a 
poem called Hudibras, without name either of printer or 
bookseller ; the true and perfect edition, printed by the 
author's original, is sold by Richard Marriot, near St Dun- 
stan's Cburchj in Fleet-street; that other nameless impres- 
sion is a cheat, and will but abuse the buyer, as well as the 
author, whose poem deserves to have fallen into better 
hands." After several other editions had followed, the first 
and second parts, with notes to loth parts, were printed for 
J. Martin and H. Herringham, octavo, 1674. The last edi- 
tion of the third part, before the author's death, was published 
by the same persons in 1678 : this must be the last cor- 
rected by himself, and is that from which subsequent edi- 
tions are generally printed ; the third part had no notes 
put to it during the author's life, and who furnished them 
(in 1710) after his death is not known. 

In the British Museum is the original injunction by au- 
thority, signed John Berkenhead, forbidding any printer or 
other person whatsoever, to print Hudibras, or any part 
thereof, without the consent or approbation of Samuel Butler 
(or Boteler), Esq. or his assignees, given at "Whitehall, 10th 
September, 1677 : copy of this injunction is given in the 
note.* 

The reception of Hzulibras at Court is probably without 
a parallel in the history of books. The king was so enchant- 
ed with it that he carried it about in his pocket, and per- 
petually garnished his conversation with specimens of its 
witty passages, which, thus stamped by royal approbation, 
passed rapidly into general currency. Nor was his Majesty 

* CHARLES R. Our will and pleasure is, and we do hereby strictly 
charge and command, that no printer, bookseller, stationer, or other person 
■whatsoever within our kingdom of England or Ireland, do print, reprint, 
utter or sell, or cause to be printed, reprinted, uttered or sold, a book or 
poem called Hudibras, or any part thereof, without the consent and ap- 
probation of Samuel Boteler, Esq. or his assignees, as they and every of 
them will answer the contrary at their perils. Given at our Court at 
"Whitehall, the tenth day of September, in the year of our Lord God 1677, 
and in the 29th year of our reign. By his Majesty's command, 

Jo. BERKENHEAD. 
Miscel. Papers, Mus. Brit. Bibl. Birch, No. 4293. 



AUTH0B OF HUDTBEAS. Vll 

content with merely quoting Butler ; in an access of enthu- 
siasm he sent for him, that he might gratify his curiosity by 
the sight of a poet who had contributed so largely to his 
amusement. The Lord Chancellor Hyde showered promises 
of patronage upon him, and hung up his portrait in his 
library.* Every person about the Court considered it his 
duty to make himself familiar with Hudibras. ■ It was mint- 
ed into proverbs and bon mots. No book was so much read. 
No book was so much cited. From the palace it found its 
way at once into the chocolate-houses and taverns ; and at- 
tained a rapid popularity all over the kingdom. 

Lord Dorset was so much struck by its extraordinary merit 
that he desired to be introduced to the author. " His lord-, 
ship," according to this curious anecdote, " having a great de- 
sire to spend an evening as a private gentleman with the 
author of Hudibras, prevailed with Mr Fleetwood Shepherd 
to introduce him into his company at a tavern which they used, 
in the character only of a common friend ; this being done, Mr 
Butler, while the first bottle was drinking, appeared very flat 
and heavy ; at the second bottle brisk and lively, full of wit 
and learning, and a most agreeable companion ; but before 
the third bottle was finished, he sunk again into such deep 
stupidity and dulness, that hardly anybody would have be- 
lieved him to be the author of a book which abounded with 
so much wit, learning, and pleasantry. Next morning, Mr 
Shepherd asked his lordship's opinion of Butler, who answer- 
ed, ' He is like a nine-pin, little at both ends, but great in 
the middle.' " 

Pepys gives us a curious illustration of the sudden and ex- 
traordinary success of Hudibras, and the excitement it occa- 
sioned in the reading world. See Memoirs, (Bohn's edit.) 
vol. i. p. 364, 380 ; vol. ii. p. 68, 72. 

* Aubrey says, " Butler printed a -witty poem called Hudibras, which 
took extremely, so that the King and Lord Chancellor Hyde would have 
him sent for. They both promised him great matters, but to this day he 
has got no employment." Evelyn, -writing to Pepys in August, 1689, speaks 
of Butler's portrait as being hung in the Chancellor's dining-room ; " and, 
what was most agreeable to his lordship's general humour, old Chaucer, 
Shakspeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, who were both in one piece, Spenser, 
Mr Waller, Cowley, Hudibras, which last was placed in the room where he 
used to eat and dine in public, most of which, if not all, are at Cornbury, 
in Oxfordshire.' ' 



Vlll LIFE OE SAMUEL BUTLEE, 

It was natural to suppose, that after the Restoration, and 
the publication of his Hudibras, our poet should have ap- 
peared in public life, and have been rewarded for the emi- 
nent service which his poem, by giving new popularity to 
the Cavalier party, and covering their enemies with derision 
and contempt, did to the royal cause. " Every eye," says Dr 
Johnson, " watched for the golden shower which was to fall 
upon its author, who certainly was not without his part in 
the general expectation." But his innate modesty, and stu- 
dious turn of mind, prevented solicitations: never having 
tasted the idle luxuries of life, he did not make for himself 
needless wants, or pine after imaginary pleasures : his for- 
tune, indeed, was small, and so was his ambition ; his inte- 
grity of life, and modest temper, rendered him contented. 
There is good authority for believing, however, that at one 
time he was gratified with an order on the treasury for 3001. 
which is said to have passed all the offices without payment 
of fees, and this gave him an opportunity of displaying his 
disinterested integrity, by conveying the entire sum imme- 
diately to a friend, in trust for the use of his creditors. Dr 
Zachary Pearce, on the authority of Mr Lowndes of the 
treasury, asserts, that Mr Butler received from Charles the 
Second an annual pension of 1001. ; add to this, he was ap- 
pointed secretary to the Earl of Carberry, then lord presi- 
dent of the principality of Wales, and soon after steward of 
. Ludlow castle,* an office which he seems to have held in 
1661 and 1662, but possibly earlier and later. "With all 
this, the Court was thought to have been guilty of a glaring 
neglect in his case, and the public were scandalized at its 
ingratitude. The indigent poets, who have always claimed 
a prescriptive right to live on the munificence of their con- 
temporaries, were the loudest in their remonstrances. Dry- 
den, Oldham, and Otway, while in appearance they com- 
plained of the unrewarded merits of our author, obliquely 
lamented their private and particular grievances. Nash says 
that Mr Butler's own sense of the disappointment, and the 
impression it made on his spirits, are sufficiently marked by 
the circumstance of his having twice transcribed the fol- 
lowing distich with some variation in his MS. common-place 
book: 

* It was at Ludlow Castle that Milton's Comus was first acted. 



AUTHOB OF HUDIBEAS. LS 

To think how Spenser died, how Cowley mourn'd, 
How Butler's faith and service were return'd. 

In the same MS. he says, " Wit is very chargeahle, and not 
to be maintained in its necessary expenses at an ordinary 
rate : it is the worst trade in the world to live upon, and a 
commodity that no man thinks he has need of, for those who 
have least believe they have most." 

Ingenuity and wit 

Do only make the owners fit 
For nothing, but to be undone 
Much easier than if th' had none. 

But a recent biographer controverts this, and takes a more 
probable view of it : he says, " The assumption of Butler's 
poverty appears utterly unfounded. Though not wealthy, 
he seems, as far as we can judge, to have always lived in com- 
fort, and we know from the statement of Mr Longueville 
that he died out of debt. Butler was not one of those 

Who hoped to make their fortune by the great ; 

and though no doubt he might have felt he had not been 
rewarded according to his deserts by his party, he was 
not entirely neglected. He had received a large share 
of popular applause, and was probably prouder of that, 
and of the power of castigating the follies and vices of 
mankind, even when displayed by those of his own party, 
than of being a more highly pensioned dependant of a Court 
that his writings show he despised. He was no 'needy 
wretch ' in want of bread or a dinner ; his earliest bio- 
grapher gives no hint of his distress ; he enjoyed friends 
of his own selection, and the injunction designates him as 
'esquire,' a title not altogether so indiscriminately applied 
as at the present time. The only foundation for the asser- 
tion of his poverty consists in his having copied twice, in his 
common-place book, a distich from the prologue to the tra- 
gedy of Constantine the Great, said to have been written by 
Otway, though it was not acted till 1684, four years after 
Butler's death. It is supposed he might have seen the MS., 
or perhaps only heard the thought, as his copies vary 
from each other and from the lines as they ultimately ap- 
peared. It was, however, long the fashion to complain of 



' X LIFE OF SAMUEL BUTLER, 

the scanty reward bestowed on literary pursuits ; yet we are 
inclined to think, though authors had then a less certain 
support in the patronage of a few than now when they ap- 
peal to a numerous public, that the improvidence of the in- 
dividual was more to blame than the niggardliness of the 
patrons, and of this improvidence there does not appear to be 
the slightest ground for accusing Butler." 

Mr Butler spent some time in Prance, it is supposed 
when Lewis XIV. was in the height of his glory and vanity, 
but neither the language nor manners of Paris were 
pleasing to our modest poet. As some of his observa- 
tions are amusing, they are inserted in a note.* About 

* " The French use so many words, upon all occasions, that if they 
did not cut them short in pronunciation, they -would grow tedious, and in- 
sufferable. 

" They infinitely affect rhyme, though it becomes their language the 
worst in the world, and spoils the little sense they have to make room for 
it, and make the same syllable rhyme to itself, which is worse than metal 
upon metal in heraldry : they find it much easier to write plays in verse 
than in prose, for it is much harder to imitate nature, than any deviation 
from her ; and prose requires a more proper and natural sense and expres- 
sion than verse, that has something in the stamp and coin to answer for the 
alloy and want of intrinsic value. I never came among them, but the fol- 
lowing line was in my mind : 

Raucaque garrulitas, studiumque inane loquendi ; 
for they talk so much, they have not time to think ; and if they had all the 
wit in the world, their tongues would run before it. 

" The present king of France is building a most stately triumphal arch 
in memory of his victories, and the great actions which he has performed : 
but, if I am not mistaken, those edifices which bear that name at Rome 
were not raised by the emperors whose names they bear (such as Trajan, 
Titus, &c), but were decreed by the Senate, and built at the expense of 
the public ; for that glory is lost which any man designs to consecrate to 
himself. 

" The king takes a very good course to weaken the city of Paris by 
adorning of it, and to render it less by making it appear greater and more 
glorious ; for he pulls down whole streets to make room for his palaces and 
public, structures. 

" There is nothing great or magnificent in all the country, that I have 
seen, but the buildings and furniture of the king's houses and the churches ; 
all the rest is mean and paltry. 

" The king is necessitated to lay heavy taxes upon his subjects in his 
own defence, and to keep them poor in order to keep them quiet ; for if 
they are suffered to enjoy any plenty, they are naturally so insolent, that 
they would become ungovernable, and use him as they have done his pre- 
decessors : but he has rendered himself so strong, that they have no 
thoughts of attempting anything in his time. 



ATJTHOE OF HTJDIBBAS. XI 

thi9 time, lie married Mrs Herbert, a lady reputed to be of 
good family, but whether she was a widow, or uot, is uncer- 
tain, as the evidence is conflicting. "With her he expected a 
considerable fortune, but, through the greater part of it 
having been put out on bad security, and other losses, occa- 
sioned, it is said, by knavery, it was of but little advantage 
to him. To this some have attributed his severe strictures 
upon the professors of the law ; but, if his censures be pro- 
perly considered, they will be found to bear hard only upon 
the disgraceful part of the profession, and upon false learn- 
ing in general. 

How long he continued in office, as steward of Ludlow Cas- 
tle, is not known, but there is no evidence of his having ex- 
ercised it after 1662. Anthony a Wood, on the authority of 
Aubrey, says that he became secretary to Villiers, Duke of 
Buckingham, when he was Chancellor of Cambridge, but this 
is doubted by Grey, who nevertheless- allows the Duke to 
have been his frequent benefactor. That both these asser- 
tions are false there is reason to suspect from a story told by 
Packe in his Life of "Wycherley, as well as from Butler's 
character of the Duke, which will be found on next page. The 
story is this : " Mr "Wycherley had always laid hold of any 
opportunity which offered of representing to the Duke of 
Buckingham how well Mr Butler had deserved of the royal 
family by writing his inimitable Hudibras ; and that it was a 
reproach to the Court, that a person of his loyalty and wit 
should suffer in obscurity and want. The Duke seemed 
always to listen to him with attention enough ; and after 
some time undertook to recommend his pretensions to his 
Majesty. Mr "Wycherley, in hopes to keep him steady 
to his word, obtained of his G-r&ce to name a day when 
he might introduce that modest and unfortunate poet to 

" The churchmen overlook all other people as haughtily as the churches 
and steeples do private houses. 

" The French do nothing without ostentation, and the king himself is 
not behind with his triumphal arches consecrated to himself, and his im- 
press of the sun, nee pluribus impar. 

" The French king, having copies of the best pictures from Eome, is as a 
great prince wearing clothes at second-hand : the king in his prodigious 
charge. of buildings and furniture does the same thing to himself that he 
means to do by Paris, renders himself weaker by endeavouring to appear 
the more magnificent; lets go the substance for the shadow." 



Xli LIFE OF SAMUEL BTTTLEB, 

his new patron. At last, an appointment was made, and 
the place of meeting was agreed to be the Roebuck. Mr 
Butler and his friend attended accordingly : the Duke join- 
ed them ; but as the devil would have it, the door of the 
room where they sat was open, and his Grace, who had seat- 
ed himself near it, observing a pimp of his acquaintance (the 
creature too was a knight) trip along with a brace of ladies, 
immediately quitted his engagement, to follow another kind 
of business, at which he was more ready than in doing good 
offices to those of desert, though no one was better qualified 
than he was, both in regard to his fortune and understand- 
ing. From that time to the day of his death, poor Butler 
never found the least effect of his promise." The character 
drawn by the poet of the Duke of Buckingham, which we 
annex in a note,* will be conclusive that he was not likely 
to have received any favour at his hands. 

* "A Duke of Bucks is one that has studied the whole hody of -vice. His 
parts are disproportionate, and, like a monster, he has more of some 
and less of others than he should have. He has pulled down all that 
fabric which nature raised to him, and built himself up again after a 
model of his own. He has dammed up all those lights that nature made 
into the noblest prospects of the world, and opened other little blind loop- 
holes backwards, by turning day into night, and night into day. His ap- 
petite to his pleasures is diseased and crazy, like the pica in a woman, that 
longs to eat what was never made for food, or a girl in the green sick- 
ness, that eats chalk and mortar. Perpetual surfeits of pleasure have filled 
his mind with bad and vicious humours (as well as his body with a nursery 
of diseases), which makes him affect new and extravagant ways, as being 
tired and sick of the old. Continual wine, women, and music put false 
values upon things, which by custom become habitual, and debauch his un- 
derstanding, so that he retains no right notion nor sense of things. And as 
the same dose of the same physic has no operation on those that are much 
used to it, so his pleasures require a larger proportion of excess and variety 
to render him sensible of them. He rises, eats, and goes to bed by the Ju- 
lian account, long after, all others that go by the new style ; and keeps the 
same hours with owls and the antipodes. He is a great observer of the 
Tartars' customs, and never eats till the great Cham, having dined, makes 
proclamation that all the world may go to dinner. He does not dwell in 
his house, but haunt it, like an evil spirit that walks all night to disturb 
the family, and never appears by day. He lives perpetually benighted, 
runs out of his life, and loses his time, as men do their ways, in the dark ; 
and as blind men are led by their dogs, so he is governed by some mean 
servant or other that relates to him his pleasures. He is as inconstant as 
the moon, which he lives under ; and, although he does nothing but advise 
with his pillow all day, he is as great a stranger to himself as he is to the 
rest of the world. His mind entertains all things very freely, that come 



AUTHOR OF HTTDIBBAS. X1U 

Notwithstanding discouragement and neglect, Butler still 
prosecuted his design, and in 1678, after an interval of near- 
ly 15 years, published the third part of his Hudibras, which 
closes the poem somewhat abruptly. "With this came out the 
Epistle to the Lady, and the Lady's Answer. How much more 
he originally intended, and with what events the action was 
to be concluded, it is vain to conjecture. After this period, 
we hear nothing of him till his death at the age of 68, which 
took place on the 25th of November, 1680, in Eose Street,* 
Covent Garden, where he had for some years resided. He 
was buried at the expense of Mr William Longueville, though 
he did not die in debt. This gentleman, with other of his 
friends, wished to have him interred in Westminster Abbey 
with proper solemnity ; but endeavoured in vain to obtain a 
sufficient subscription for that purpose. His corpse was de- 
posited privately six feet deep, according to his own request, 
in the yard belonging to the church of Saint Paul's, Covent 
Garden, at the west end of it, on the north side, under the 
wall of the church, and under that wall which parts the yard 
from the common highway. The burial service was performed 
by the learned Dr Patrick, then minister of the parish, and 
afterwards Bishop of Ely. In the year 1786, when the 
church was repaired, a marble monument was placed on the 
south side of the church on the inside,t by some of the parish- 
ioners, whose zeal for the memory of the learned poet does 
them honour : but the writer of the verses seems to have 

and go ; but, like guests and strangers, they are not welcome if they stay 
long. This lays him open to all cheats, quacks, and impostors, who apply 
to every particular humour while it lasts, and afterwards vanish. Thus 
with St Paul, though in a different sense, he dies daily, and only lives in 
the night. He deforms nature, while he intends to adorn her, like Indians 
that hang jewels in their lips and noses. His ears are perpetually drilled 
with a fiddlestick. He endures pleasures with less patience than other 
men do pains." 

* A narrow and now rather obscure street, which runs circuitously from 
King Street, Covent Garden, to Long Acre. The site of the house is not 
now known Curll the bookseller carried on his business here at the same 
time, and Dryden lived within a stone's throw in Long Acre, " over against 
Eose Street." 

+ This monument was a tablet, which of late years was affixed under the 
vestry-room window in that part of the church-yard where his body is sup- 
posed to lie. In 1854, when the church-yard was closed against further 
burials, the tablet, then in a dilapidated condition, was carted away with 
other debris. 



XIV LIFE OF SAMUEL BUTLER, 

mistaken the character of Mr Butler. The inscription runs 
thus : 

" This little monument was erected in the year 1786, by 
some of the parishioners of Covent Garden, in memory of 
the celebrated Samuel Butler, who was buried in this church, 
A. D. 16S0. 

A few plain men, to pomp and state unknown, 

O'er a poor bard have rais'd this humble stone, 

Whose wants alone his genius could surpass, 

Victim of zeal ! the matchless Hudibras ! 

What though fair freedom suffer' d in his page, 

Reader, forgive the author for the age ! 

How few, alas ! disdain to cringe and cant, 

When 'tis the mode to play the sycophant. 

But, oh ! let all be taught, from Butler's fate, 

Who hope to make their fortunes by the great, 

That wit and pride are always dangerous things, 

And little faith is due to courts and kings." 

Forty years after his burial at Covent Grarden, that is, in 
1721, John Barber, an eminent printer, and Lord Mayor of 
London, erected a monument to his memory in West- 
minster Abbey, with the following inscription : 

M. S. 

Samuelis Butler 
Qui Strenshamise in agro Vigorn. natus 1612,' 
Obiit Lond. 1680. 
Vir doctus imprimis, acer, integer, 
Operibus ingenii non item prsemiis felix. 
Satyrici apud nos carminis artifex egregius, 
Qui simulate religionis larvam detraxit 
Et perduellium scelera liberrime exagitavit, 
Scriptorum in suo genere primus et postremus. 
Ne cui vivo deerant fere omnia 
Deesset etiam mortuo tumulus 
Hoc tandem posito marmore curavit 
Johannes Barber civis Londinensis 1721.* 

* Translation. — Sacred to the memory of Samuel Butler, who was 
born at Strensham, in Worcestershire, in 1612, and died in London, 
in 1680, — a man of great learning, acuteness, and integrity ; happy 
in the productions of his intellect, not so in the remuneration of them; 
a super-eminent master of satirical poetry, by which he lifted the mask ot 
hypocrisy, and boldly exposed the crimes of faction. As a writer, he was 
the first and last in his peculiar style. John Barber, a citizen of London, in 
1721, by at length erecting this marble, took care that he, who wanted 
almost everything when alive, might not also want a tomb when dead. For 
an Engraving of the Monument, see Dart's Westminster Abbey, vol. i. plate 3. 



AUTHOR OF HTTDIBEAS. XV 

On the latter part of this epitaph the ingenious Mr Samuel 
Wesley wrote the following lines : 

"WTiile Butler, needy -wretch, -was yet alive, 

No generous patron would a dinner, give ; 

See him, when starved to death, and turn'd to dust, 

Presented with a monumental bust. 

The poet's fate is here in emblem shown, 

He ask'd for bread, and he received a stone. 

Soon after this monument was erected in Westminster 
Abbey, some persons proposed to erect one in Covent Gar- 
den church, for which Mr Dennis wrote the following in- 
scription : 

Near this place lies interr'd 

The body of Mr Samuel Butler, 

Author of Hudibras. 

He was a whole species of poets in one : 

Admirable in a manner 

In which no one else has been tolerable : 

A manner which begun and ended in him, 

In which he knew no guide, 

And has found no followers. 

Nat. 1612. Ob. 1680. 

While in London, where Butler died, these tributes to his 
genius were set up at intervals by men of opposite principles, 
the place of his birth remained without any memorial until 
within the last few years, when a white marble tablet, with 
florid canopy, crockets, and finial, was placed in the parish 
church of Strensham, by John Taylor, of Strensham Court, 
Esq., upon whose estate the poet was born. In the design 
is a small figure of Hudibras, and the face of the tablet bears 
the following simple inscription : 

" This tablet was erected to the memory of Samuel Butler, 
to transmit to future ages that near this spot was born a 
mind so celebrated. In Westminster Abbey, among the 
poets of England, his fame is recorded. Here, in his native 
village, in veneration of his talents and genius, this tribute 
to his memory has been erected by the possessor of the place 
of his birth — John Taylor, Strensham." 

What became of the lady he married is unknown, as there 
is no subsequent trace of her ; but it is presumed she died 
before him. Mr G-ilfillan assumes that " subscriptions were 
raised for his widow," but gives no authority, and we believe 
none exists. 



XVI LIFE OF SAMUEL BTTTLEB, 

" Hudibras (says Mr Nash) is Mr Butler's capital work, 
and though the Characters, Poems, Thoughts, &c. published 
as Remains by Mr Thyer, in two volumes octavo, are cer- 
tainly written by the same masterly hand, though they 
abound with lively sallies of wit, and display a copious va- 
riety of erudition, yet the nature of the subjects, their not 
having received the author's last corrections, and many other 
reasons which might be given, render them less acceptable 
to the present taste of the public, which no longer relishes 
the antiquated mode of writing characters, cultivated when 
Butler was young, by men of genius, such as Bishop Earle 
and Mr Cleveland. 

The three small volumes, entitled Posthumous "Works, in 
prose and verse, by Mr Samuel Butler, author of Hudibras, 
printed 1715, 1716, 1717, are all spurious, except the Pindaric 
Ode on Duval the highwayman, and one or two of the prose 
pieces. Mr Nash says, " As to the MSS. which after Mr 
Butler's death came into the hands" of Mr Longueville, and 
from which Mr Thyer published his Genuine Bemains in 
the year 1759 ; what remain unpublished are either in the 
hands of the ingenious Doctor Parmer of Cambridge, or my- 
self. Por Mr Butler's Common-place Book, mentioned by Mr 
Thyer, I am indebted to the liberal and public-spirited James 
Massey, Esq., of Bosthern, near Kuotsford, Cheshire." 

The poet's frequent and correct use of law terms * is a 
sufficient proof that he was well versed in that science : but 
if further evidence were wanting, says Mr Nash, " I can 
produce a MS. purchased of some of our poet's relations, at 
the Hay, in Brecknockshire, which appears to be a collection 
of legal cases and principles, regularly related from 'Lord 
Coke's Commentary on Littleton's Tenures. The language 
is Norman, or law French, and the authorities in the margin 
of the MS. correspond exactly with those given on the same 
positions in the first institute? The first book of the MS. 
ends with the 84th section, which same number of sections 
also terminates the first institute ; and the second book is 
entitled Le second livre del premier part del Institutes de 
Ley d'Engleterre. It may, therefore, reasonably be pre- 
sumed to have been compiled by Butler solely from Coke 

* Butler is said to have been a member of Gray's-inn, and of a club with 
Cleveland and other wits inclined to the royal cause. 



ATJTnOB OF nrDIBEAS. XV11 

upon Littleton, with no other object than to impress strong- 
ly on his mind the sense of that author ; and written in 
Norman, to familiarize himself with the barbarous language 
in which the learning of the common law of England was at 
that period almost uniformly expressed. 

" As another instance of the poet's great industry, I have a 
French dictionary, compiled and transcribed by him : thus 
our ancestors, with great labour, drew truth and learning 
out of deep wells, whereas our modern scholars only skim the 
surface, and pilfer a superficial knowledge from encyclopae- 
dias and reviews. It doth not appear that he ever Avrote for 
the stage, though I have, in his MS. common-place book, 
part of an unfinished tragedy, entitled JNTero." 

Concerning Hudibras there is but one sentiment. The 
admirable fecundity of wit, and the infinite variety of know- 
ledge, displayed throughout the poem have been universally 
admitted. Dr Johnson well expresses the general sense of 
all its readers when he says, " If inexhaustible wit could give 
perpetual pleasure, no eye would ever leave half read the 
work of Butler; for what poet has ever brought so many 
remote images so happily together ? It is scarcely possible 
to peruse a page without finding some association of images 
that was never found before. By the first paragraph the 
reader is amused, by the next he is delighted, and by a few 
more strained to astonishment ; but astonishment is a toil- 
some pleasure ; he is soon weary of wondering, and longs to 
be diverted." And he adds, " Imagination is useless without 
knowledge ; nature gives in vain the power of combination, 
unless study and observation supply materials to be com- 
bined. Butler's treasures of knowledge appear proportioned 
to his experience : whatever topic employs his mind, he shows 
himself qualified to expand and illustrate it with all the ac- 
cessaries that books can furnish : he is found not only to 
have travelled the beaten road, but the by-paths of litera- 
ture ; not only to have taken general surveys, but to have 
examined particulars with minute inspection." 

Various have been the attempts to define or describe the 
wit and humour of this celebrated poem ; the greatest Eng- 
lish writers have tried in vain, Cowley,* Barrow,t Dryden,J 

* In his Ode on "Wit,— f In his Sermon against Foolish Talking and 
Jesting, — X In bis Preface to an Opera called the State of Innocence 



XVL11 LIFE OF SAMUEL BUTLEE, 

Locke,* Addison,t Pope,} and Congreve, all failed in their 
attempts ; perhaps they are more to be felt than explained, 
and to be understood rather from example than precept. " If 
any one," says JN"ash, "wishes to know what wit and hu- 
mour are, let him read Hudibras with attention, he will there 
see them displayed in the brightest colours : there is brilliancy 
resulting from the power of rapid illustration by remote con- 
tingent resemblances ; propriety of words, and thoughts ele- 
gantly adapted to the occasion: objects which possess.-an 
affinity and congruity, or sometimes a contrast to each other, 
assembled with quickness and variety ; in short, every in- 
gredient of wit, or of humour, which critics have discovered, 
may be found in this poem. The reader may congratulate 
himself, that he is not destitute of taste to relish both, if he 
can read it with delight." 

Hudibras is to an epic poem what a good farce is to a 
tragedy ; persons advanced in years generally prefer the 
former, having met with tragedies enough in real life ; where- 
as the comedy, or interlude, is a relief from anxious and dis- 
gusting reflections, and suggests such playful ideas, as wan- 
ton round the heart and enliven the very features. 

The hero marches out in search of adventures, to suppress 
those sports, and punish those trivial offences, which the vul- 
gar among the Eoyalists were fond of, but which the Presby- 
terians and Independents abhorred ; and which our hero, as 
a magistrate of the former persuasion, thought it his duty 
officially to suppress. The diction is that of burlesque po- 
etry, painting low and mean persons and things in pompous 
language and a magnificent manner, or sometimes level- 
ling sublime and pompous passages to the standard of low 
imagery. The principal actions of the poem are four : Hu- 
dibras's victory over Crowdero — Trulla's victory over Hudi- 
bras — Hudibras's victory over Sidrophel — and the Widow's 
antimasquerade : the rest is made up of the adventures of the 
Bear, of the Skimmington, Hudibras's conversations with the 
Lawyer and Sidrophel, and his long disputations with Ralpho 
and the Widow. The verse consists of eight syllables, or 
four feet ; a measure which, in unskilful hands, soon becomes 

* Essay on Human Understanding, b. ii. c. 2. — f Spectator, No. % and 
32.— J Essay concerning Humour in Comedy, and Corbyn Morris'fi Essay 
on Wit, Humour, and Raillery. 



AUTHOR OF HUDIBEAS. XIX 

tiresome, and will ever be a dangerous .snare to meaner and 
less masterly imitators. 

The Scotch, the Irish, the American Hudioras, and a host 
of other imitations, are hardly worth mentioning ; they only 
prove the excitement which this new species of poetrj'- had 
occasioned ; the translation into French, by -Mr Towneley, 
an Englishman, is curious, it preserves the sense, but cannot 
keep up the humour. Prior seems to have come nearest 
the original, though he is sensible of his own inferiority, 
and says, 

But, like poor Andrew, I advance, 
False mimic of my master's dance ; 
Around the cord awhile I sprawl, 
And thence, tho' low, in earnest fall. 

His Alma is neat and elegant, and his versification supe- 
rior to Butler's; but his learning, knowledge, and wit by 
no means equal. The spangles of wit which he could afford, 
he knew how to polish, but he wanted the bullion of his mas- 
ter. Hudibras, then, may truly be said to be the first and 
last satire of the kind ; for if we examine Lucian's Trago-po- 
dagra, and other dialogues, the Ccesars of Julian, Seneca's 
Apocolocyntosis, or the mock deification of Claudius, and 
some fragments of Varro, they will be found very different : 
the Batrachomyomachia, or battle of the frogs and mice, com- 
monly ascribed to Homer, and the Margites, generally al- 
lowed to be his, prove this species of poetry to be of great 
antiquity. 

The inventor of the modern mock heroic was Alessandro 
Tassoni, born at Modena 1565. His Seccliia rapita, or Eape 
of the Bucket, is founded on the popular account of the 
cause of the civil war between the inhabitants of Modena 
and Bologna, in the time of Frederick II. This bucket was 
long preserved, as a trophy, in the cathedral of Modena, sus- 
pended by the chain which fastened the gate of Bologna, 
through which the Modenese forced their passage, and seized 
the prize. It is written in the ottava rima, the solemn mea- 
sure of the Italian heroic poets, and has considerable merit. 

The next successful imitators of the mock-heroic have 
been Boileau, Garth, and Pope, whose respective works are 
too generally known, and too justly admired, to require, at 
this time, description or encomium, 
c 2 



XI LIFE OE SAMUEL BTJTLEB, 

Hudibras has been compared to the Satyr e Menippee, first 
published in France in the year 1593. The subject indeed is 
somewhat similar, a violent civil war excited by religious zeal, 
and many good men made the dupes of state politicians. 
After the death of Henry III. of France, the Duke de May- 
ence called together the states of the kingdom, to elect a 
successor, there being many pretenders to the crown ; the 
consequent intrigues were the foundation of the Satyre 
Menippee, so called from Menippus, an ancient cynic philo- 
sopher and rough satirist, introducer of the burlesque spe- 
cies of dialogue. In this work are unveiled the different 
views and interests of the several actors in those busy 
scenes, who, under the pretence of public good, consulted 
only their private advantage, passions, and prejudices. This 
book, which aims particularly at the Spanish party, went 
through various editions, from its first publication to 1726, 
when it was printed at Eatisbon in three volumes, with 
copious notes and index. In its day it was as much admired 
as Hudibras, and is still studied by antiquaries with delight. 
But this satire differs widely from our author's : like those 
of Varro, Seneca, and Julian, it is a mixture of verse and prose, 
and though it contains much wit, and Mr Butler had certainly 
read it with attention, yet he cannot be said to imitate it. 

The reader will perceive that our poet had more immedi- 
ately in view, Don Quixote, Spenser, the Italian poets, toge- 
ther with the Greek and Roman classics ; * but very rarely, 
if ever, alludes to Milton, though Paradise Lost was publish- 
ed ten years before the third part of Hudibras. 

Other sorts of burlesque have been published, such as the 
Carmina Macaronica, the Epistolce obscurorum Virorum, Cot- 
ton's Virgil Travesty, &c, but these are efforts of genius of 
no great importance, and many burlesque and satirical pieces, 
prose and verse, were published in France between the year 
1533 and 1660, by Eabelais, Scarron, and others. 

* The editor has in his possession a copy of the first edition of the two 
parts of Hudibras, appended to which are about 100 pages of contemporary 
manuscript, indicating the particular passages of preceding writers which 
Butler is supposed to have had in view. Among the authors most frequent- 
ly quoted are : Cervantes (Don Quixote), Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Juvenal 
and Persius, Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius, Lucan, Martial, Statius, 
Suetonius, Justin, Tacitus, Cicero, Aulus Gellius, Macrobius, Plinii His- 
toria Naturalis, and Erasmi adagia. 



AUTHOR OF HrDIBEAS. XXI 

Hudibras operated wonderfully in beating down the hypo- 
crisy and false patriotism of the time. Mr Hayley gives a 
character of the author in four lines with great propriety : 

"UurivaU'd Butler! blest with happy skill 
To heal by comic verse each serious ill, 
By wit's strong flashes reason's light dispense, 
And laugh a frantic nation into sense." 

For one great object of our poet's satire is to unmask the 
hypocrite, and to exhibit, in a light at once odious and ridi- 
culous, the Presbyterians and Independents, and all other 
sects, which in our poet's days amounted to near two hundred, 
and were enemies to the king ; but his further view was to 
banter all the false, and even all the suspicious, pretences to 
learning that prevailed in his time, such as astrology, sympa- 
thetic medicine, alchymy, transfusion of blood, trifling con- 
ceits in experimental philosophy, fortune-telling, incredible 
relations of travellers, false wit, and injudicious affectations 
of poets and romance writers. Thus he frequently alludes to 
Purehas's Pilgrimes, Sir Kenelm Digby's books, Bulwer's 
Artificial Changeling, Sir Thomas Brown's Vulgar Errors, 
Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Lilly's Astrology, and the 
early transactions of the Royal Society. These books were 
much read and admired in our author's days. 

The adventure with the widoAv is introduced in conformity 
with other poets, both heroic and dramatic, who hold that 
no poem ca:i be perfect which hath not at least one Episode 
of Love. 

It is not worth while to inquire, if the characters painted 
under the fictitious names of Hudibras, Crowdero, Orsin, 
Talgol, Trulla, &c, were drawn from real life, or whether Sir 
Roger L'Estrange's key to Hudibras * be a true one. It mat- 
ters not whether the hero were designed as the picture of Sir 
Samuel Luke, Colonel Rolls, or Sir Henry Rosewell ; he is, in 
the language of Dryden, Knight of the Shire, and represents 
them all, that is, the whole body of the Presbyterians, as 
Ralpho does that of the Independents. It would be degrading 
the liberal spirit and universal genius of Mr Butler, to nar- 
row his general satire to a particular libel on any characters, 
however marked and prominent. To a single rogue, or 

* First published in 1714. 



XXU LIFE OE SAMUEL ETJTLEB, 

blockhead, he disdained to stoop ; the vices and follies of the 
age in which he lived were th6 quarry at which he flew; 
these he concentrated, and embodied in the persons of Hudi- 
bras, Ealpho, Sidrophel, &c, so that each character in this 
admirable poem should be considered, not as an individual, 
but as a species. 

Meanings still more remote and chimerical than mere per 
sonal allusions, have by some been discovered in Hudibras 
and the poem would have wanted one of those marks which 
distinguish works of superior merit, if it had not been sup- 
posed to be a perpetual allegory. Writers of eminence, Ho- 
mer, Plato, and even the Holy Scriptures themselves, have 
been most wretchedly misrepresented by commentators of 
this cast. Thus some have thought that the hero of the piece 
was intended to represent the parliament, especially that 
part of it which favoured the Presbyterian discipline. When 
in the stocks, he is said io personate the Presbyterians after 
they had lost their power ; his first exploit against the bear, 
-whom he routs, is assumed to represent the parliament get- 
ting the better of the king ; after this great victory he 
courts a widow for her jointure, which is supposed to mean 
the riches and power of the kingdom ; being scorned by her, he 
retires, but the revival of hope to the Royalists, draws forth 
both him and his squire, a little before Sir George Booth's 
insurrection. Magnano, Cerdon, Talgol, &c, though described 
as butchers, coblers, tinkers, are made to represent officers in 
the parliament army, whose original professions, perhaps, were 
not much more noble : some have imagined Magnano to be 
the Hake of Albemarle, and his getting thistles from a barren 
land, to allude to his power in Scotland, especially after the 
defeat of Booth. Trulla means his wife ; Crowdero Sir George 
Booth, whose bringing in of Bruin alludes to his endeavours 
to restore the king ; his oaken leg, called the better one, is 
the king's cause, his other leg the Presbyterian discipline ; 
his fiddle-case, which in sport they hung as a trophy on the 
whipping-post, is the directory. Ealpho, they say, represents 
the Parliament of Independents, called Barebone's Parlia- 
ment ; Bruin is sometimes the royal person, sometimes the 
king's adherents : Orsin represents the royal party ; Talgol 
the city of London; Colon the bulk of the people. All these 
joining together against the Knight, represent Sir George 



AUTHOR OF HrDIBEAS. XX1U 

Booth's conspiracy, with Presbyterians and Royalists, against 
the parliament : their overthrow, through the assistance of 
Ealph, means the defeat of Booth by the assistance of 
the Independents and other fanatics. These ideas are, per- 
haps, only the frenzy of a wild imagination, though there 
may be some lines that seem to favour the conceit. 

Dryden and Addison have censured Butler for his double 
rhymes ; the latter nowhere argues worse than upon this 
subject : " If," says he, " the thought in the couplet be good, 
the rhymes add little to it ; and if bad, it will not be in the 
power of rhyme to recommend it ; I am afraid that great 
numbers of those who admire the incomparable Hudibras, do 
it more on account of these doggrel rhymes, than the parts 
that really deserve admiration."* This reflection affects 
equally all sorts of rhyme, which certainly can add nothing 
to the sense ; but double rhymes are like the whimsical 
dress of Harlequin, which does not add to his wit, but some- 
times increases the humour and drollery of it : they are not 
sought for, but, when they come easily, are always diverting: 
they are so seldom found in Hudibras, as hardly to be an 
object of censure, especially as the diction and the rhyme 
both suit well with the character of the hero. 

It must be allowed that our poet does not exhibit his hero 
with the dignity of Cervantes : but the principal fault of the 
poem is, that the parts are unconnected, and the story deficient 
in sustained interest ; the reader may leave off without being 
anxious for the fate of his hero ; he sees only disjecti membra 
poetce ; but we should remember that the parts were pub- 
lished at long intervals,f and that several of the different 
cantos were designed as satires on different subjects or ex- 
travagancies. 

Fault has likewise been found, and perhaps justly, with 
Butler's too frequent elisions, the harshness of his numbers, 
and the omission of the signs of substantives ; his inattention 
to grammar and syntax, which in some passages obscures 
his meaning; and the perplexity which sometimes arises 
from the amazing fruitfulness of his imagination, and extent 



* Spectator, No. 60. 

f The Epistle to Sidrophel, not till many years after the canto to which 
it is annexed. 



XXIV LIFE OF SAMUEL BUTLER. 

of his reading. Most writers have more words than ideas, 
and the reader wastes much pains with them, and gets little 
information or amusement. Butler, on the contrary, has 
more ideas than words ; his wit and learning crowd so fast 
upon him, that he cannot find room or time to arrange them : 
hence his periods become sometimes embarrassed and ob- 
scure, and his dialogues too long. Our poet has been 
charged with obscenity, evil-speaking, and profaneness ; but 
satirists will take liberties. Juvenal, and that elegant poet 
Horace, must plead his cause, so far as the accusation is well 
founded. 

In the preceding memoir, Dr Nash, the latest and most 
authentic of Butler's biographers, has been our principal 
guide ; the reader who is desirous of a more critical and 
elaborate, though sometimes unjustly severe, view of the 
poem and the poet, will turn without disappointment to the 
elouuent pages of Dr Johnson. 





HTJDI BEAS, 



■°4TIT I. CANTO I. 




THE ARGUMENT. 

Sir Hudibras l his passing worth, 
The manner how he sallied forth, 
His arms and equipage, are shown ; 
His horse's virtues and his own. 
Th' adventure of the bear and fiddle 
Is sung, but breaks off in the middle. 2 



1 Butler probably took the name of Hudibras from Spencer's Fairy 
Queen, B. ii. C. ii. St. 17. 

He tbat made love unto the eldest dame 

Was higbt Sir Hudibras, an hardy man ; 

Yet not so good of deeds, as great of name, 

Which he by many rash adventures wan, 

Since errant arms to sew he first began. 
Geoffrey of Monmouth mentions a British king of th : s name, as living 
about the time of Solomon, and reigning 39 years. He is said to have com- 
posed all the dissensions among his people. Others have supposed it de- 
rived from the French, Hugo, or Hu de Bras, signifying Hugh with the 
strong arm : thus Fortinbras, Firebras. 

In the Grub-street Journal, Col. Rolls, a Devonshire gentleman, is said 
to be satirized under the character of Hudibras ; and it is asserted, that 
Hugh de Bras was the name of the old tutelar saint of that county ; Dr 
Grey had been informed, on credible authority,- that the person intended 
was Sir Henry Rosewell, of Ford Abbey, Devonshire ; but it is idle to look 
for personal reflections in a poem designed for a general satire on hy- 
pocrisy, enthusiasm, and false learning. There is no doubt, however, that 
Sir Samuel Luke, of Bedfoi-dshire, is the likeliest hero. See lines 15 and 902. 

2 A ridicule on Ronsard's Franciade, and Sir William Davenant's Gon- 
dibert, both unfinished. 



HUDIBK^S. CA2s T T0 I. 



^yT^^r^rn^r^i HE:N " c i vu dudgeon ' first grew high, 

fl-l And men fell out, they knew not why ; 2 
3 When hard words, 3 jealousies, and fears 4 
e v/l^v/fZ^ ^ e * ^'°^ s together by the ears, 
^VM//^ And made them fight, like mad or drunk, 5 
' For dame Eeligion as for Punk ; 

"Whose honesty they all durst swear for, 
Tho' not a man of them knew wherefore : 
"When Gospel-Trumpeter, surrounded 5 
"With long-ear'd 6 rout, to battle sounded, 10 

1 To take in dudgeon is inwardly to resent some injury or affront, a sort 
of grumbling in the gizzard (as Tom Hood has said), and what is previous 
to actual fury. It was altered by Mr Butler, in his edition of 1674, to 
civil fury, and so stood until 1700. But the original word was restored in 
1704, and has been adopted, with two or three recent exceptions, ever since ; 
and it unquestionably is most in keeping with the character of the poem. 
Dudgeon in its primitive sense is a dagger, and is so used towards the close 
of the present canto. 

2 It may be justly said they knew not why, since, as Lord Clarendon 
observes, "The like peace and plenty, and universal tranquillity, was never 
enjoyed by any nation for ten years together, before those unhappy troubles 
began." 

3 The jargon and cant-words used by the Presbyterians and other sec- 
taries, such as gospel-walking-times, soul-saving, carnal-minded, carryings- 
on, workings-out, conimittee-dom, &c. They called themselves the elect, 
'he saints, the predestinated, and their opponents Papists, Prelatists, repro- 
bates, &c. &c. They set the people against the Common-prayer, which they 
asserted was the mass-book in English, and nicknamed it Porridge ; and 
enraged them against the surplice, calling it a rag of Popery, the whore 
of Babylon's smock, and the smock of the whore of Pome. 

i Jealousies and fears were words bandied between Charles I. and the 
parliament in all their papers, before the absolute breaking out of the 
war. They were used by the parliament to the king, in their petition for 
the militia, March 1, 1641-2; and by the king in his answer, "You speak 
of jealousies and fears ; lay your hands to your hearts and ask yourselves, 
whether I may not be disturbed with jealousies and fears." 

5 The Presbyterians (many of whom before the war had got into parish 
churches) preached the people into rebellion, incited them to take up arms 
and fight the Lord's battles, and destroy the Amalekites, root and branch, 
hip and thigh. They told them also to bind their kings in chains, and their 
nobles in links of iron. And Dr South has recorded that many of the regi- 
cides were drawn into the grand rebellion by the direful imprecations of se- 
ditious preachers from the pulpit. See Spectator, Nos. 60 and 153. 

6 The Puritans had a custom of putting their hands behind their ears, 
at sermons, and bending them forward, under pretence of hearing the bet- 



4 HTTDIBEAS. [PAET I. 

And pulpit, drum ecclesiastick, 
Was beat with fist, instead of a stick ; l 
Then did Sir Knight abandon dwelling, 
And out he rode a colonelling. 2 

A Wight he was, whose very sight would IS 

Entitle him Mirror of Knighthood ; 
That never bow'd his stubborn knee 3 
To anything but chivalry ; 
Nor put up blow, but that which laid 
Eight Worshipful on shoulder-blade : 4 20 

Chief of domestic knights, and errant, 
Either for chartel 5 or for warrant : 
Great on the bench, great in the saddle, 
That could as well bind o'er, as swaddle : 6 

ter. Five hundred or a thousand large ears were sometimes pricked up in 
this fashion as soon as the text was named, and as they wore their hair 
very short (whence they were called round-heads), they were the more 
prominent. Dryden alludes to this in his line : 

" And pricks up his predestinating ears." 

1 Eidiculing their vehement action in the pulpit, and their heating it 
with their fists, as if they were heating a drum. 

2 Sir Samuel Luke, of Bedfordshire, is no doubt the type of our hero. 
This has hitherto been merely surmised, first by Grey, and since by all his 
successors, including Nash ; but the present editor possesses a copy of 
the original edition, 1663, in which a MS. Key, evidently of the same 
date, gives the name of Sir Samuel Luke, without any question. Sir 
Samuel was a rigid Presbyterian, high in the favour of Cromwell, justice 
of the peace, chairman of the quarter sessions, a colonel in the parliament 
army, a committee-man of his own county, and scout-master-general in 
the counties of Bedford and Surrey. Butler was for a time in the service 
of Sir Samuel, probably as secretary ; and though in the centre of Puritan 
meetings, was at heart a Royalist and a Churchman. 

3 Alluding to the Presbyterians, , who refused to kneel at the Sacrament 
of the Lord's Supper ; and insisted upon receiving it in a sitting or stand- 
ing posture. In some of the kirks in Scotland, the pews are so made, that 
it is very difficult for any one to kneel. 

4 That is, did not kneel or submit to a blow, except when the King dubbed 
him a knight. Sir Kenelm Digby tells us, that when King James I., who 
had an antipathy to a sword, dubbed him knight, had not the Duke of 
Buckingham guided his hand aright, in lieu of touching his shoulder, he had 
certainly run the point of it into his eye. 

s A challenge ; also an agreement in writing between parties or armies 
which are enemies. MS. Key. 

6 Swaddle. — This word has two opposite meanings, one to beat or cudgel, 
the other to hind up or swathe, hence swaddling clothes. See Johnson, "Web- 
ster, &c. 



CLSTO I.] 



Mighty he was at both of these, 
And styled of War as -well as Peace. 
So some rats of amphibious nature 
Are either for the land or water. 
But here our authors make a doubt, 
Whether he were more wise or stout. 1 
Some hold the one, and some the other ; 
But howsoe'er they make a pother, 
The diff'rence was so small, his brain 
Outweigh' d his rage but half a grain ; 
Which made some take him for a tool 
That knaves do work with, call'd a Fool. 
For t' has been held by many, that 
As Montaigne, playing with his cat, 




Complains she thought him but an ass, 2 

Much more she would Sir Hudibras : 40 

For that's the name our valiant knight 

To all his challenges did write. 

But they're mistaken very much, 

'Tis plain enough he was no such ; 

We grant, although he had much wit, 45 

H' was very shy of using it ; 

1 A burlesque on the usual strain of rhetorical flattery, when authors 
pretend to be puzzled which of their patrons' noble qualities they should 
give the preference to. 

2 See this playful passage (quoted from Montaigne, Essays ii. 12) in 
Walton's Angler, chap. i. 



6 HTJDIBRAS. [PART I. 

Aa being loth to wear it out, 

And therefore bore it not about, 

Unless on holy-days, or so, 

As men their best apparel do. 50 

Beside, 'tis known he could speak Greek 

As naturally as pigs squeak : * 

That Latin was no more difficile, 

Than to a blackbird 'tis to whistle. 

Being rich in both, he never scanted 55 

His bounty unto such as wanted ; 

But much of either would afford 

To many, that had not one word. 

For Hebrew roots, although they're found 

To flourish most in barren ground, 2 60 

He had such plenty, as sufficed 

To make some think him circumcised ; 

And truly so, perhaps, he was, 

'Tis many a pious Christian's case. 3 

He was in Logic a great critic, 65 

Profoundly skill' d in Analytic ; 
He could distinguish, and divide 
A hair 'twixt south and south-west side ; 
On either which he would dispute, 
Confute, change hands, and still confute. 4 70 

He'd undertake to prove, by force 
Of argument, a man's no horse ; 

1 " He Greek and Latin speaks with greater ease 
Than hogs eat acorns, and tame pigeons peas." 

Cranfield's Panegyric on Tom Coriate. 

2 Alluding probably to a notion promulgated by Echard and Sir Thomas 
Browne, that as Hebrew is the primitive language of man, children, if re- 
moved from all society, " brought up in a wood, and suckled by a wolf," 
would, at four years old, instinctively speak Hebrew. Some students in 
Hebrew (especially John Ryland, the friend of Eobert Hall) have been 
very angry with these lines, and assert that they have done more to pre- 
vent the study of that language, than all the professors have done to pro- 
mote it. 

3 In the first editions this couplet was differently expressed. 

And truly so he was perhaps, 

Not as a proselyte, but for claps. 
* Carneades, the academic, having one day disputed at Rome very copi- 
ously in praise of justice, refuted every word on the morrow, by a train of 
contrary arguments. — Something similar is said of Cardinal Perron. 



CA>"TO I.] HTJDTBEAS. 7 

He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl, 

And that a Lord may be an owl ; 

A calf an Alderman, 1 a goose a Justice, 2 75 

And rooks, Committee-Men or Trustees. 3 

He'd run in debt by disputation, 

And pay with ratiocination. 

All this by syllogism true, 

In mood and figure, he would do. 80 

For Ehetoric, he could not ope 
His mouth, but out there flew a trope : 
And when he happen' d to break off 
I' th' middle of his speech, or cough, 4 
H' had hard words ready, to show why, 5 85 

And tell what rules he did it by. 
Else, when with greatest art he spoke, 
You'd think he talk'd like other folk. 
For all a Ehetorician's rules 

Teach nothing but to name his tools. 90 

But when he pleased to show 't, his speech 
In loftiness of sound was rich ; 

1 Such was Alderman Pennington, who sent a person to Newgate for 
singing what he called a malignant psalm. 

2 After the declaration of No more addresses to the king, they who 
before were not above the condition of ordinary constables now became 
justices of the peace. Chelmsford, at the beginning of the rebellion, was 
governed by two tailors, two cobblers, two pedlars, and a tinker. 

3 A rook is supposed to devour the grain ; hence, by a figure, applied 
to the committee-men, who, under the authority of parliament, harassed 
and oppressed the country, devouring, in an arbitrary manner, the property 
of those they did not like. An ordinance was passed in 1649, for the sale of 
the royal lands, to pay the army ; the common soldiers purchasing by regi- 
ments, like corporations, and having trustees for the whole. These 
trustees often purchased the soldiers' shares at a very small price, and 
cheated both officers and soldiers, by detaining the trust estates for their 
own use. 

4 The preachers of those days looked upon coughing and hemming as 
ornaments of speech ; and when they printed their sermons, noted in the 
margin where the preacher coughed or hemm'd. This practice was not 
confined to England, for Olivier Maillard, a Cordelier, and famous preacher, 
printed a sermon at Brussels in the year 1500," and marked in the margin 
where the preacher hemm'd once or twice, or coughed. 

5 Amongst the "hard words" of the rhetoricians ridiculed here, were 
such as hyperbaton, ecphonesis, asyndeton, aporia, homceosis, hyperbole, 
hypomone, apodioxis, anadiplosis, &c. &c; for the meanings of which, see 
Webster's Dictionary. 



8 HTJDIBRAS. [PAST I, 

A Babylonish dialect, 
"Which- learned pedants much affect. 
It was a parti-colour'd dress 95 

Of patch' d and piebald languages : 
'Twas English cut on Greek and Latin, 
Like fustian heretofore on satin. 1 
It had an odd promiscuous tone 
As if h' had talk'd three parts in one ; 100 

Which made some think, when he did gabble, 
TV had heard three labourers of Babel ; 2 
Or Cerberus himself pronounce 
A leash of languages at once. 

This he as volubly would vent 105 

As if his stock would ne'er be spent : 
" And truly, to support that charge, 
He had supplies as vast and large. 
For he could coin, or counterfeit 
~New words, with little or no wit ; 110 

Words so debased and hard, no stone 
Was hard enough to touch them on. 
And when with hasty noise he spoke 'em, 
The ignorant for current took 'em. 
That had the orator, who once 115 

Did fill his mouth with pebble stones 3 
When he harangued, but known his phrase, 
He would have used no other ways. 

In Mathematics he was greater 
Than Tycho Brahe, or Erra Pater : * 120 

1 Slashed sleeves and hose may he seen in the pictures of Dobson, Van- 
dyke, and others ; they were coarse fustian pinked, or cut into holes, that 
the satin might appear through it. 

2 Diodorus Siculus mentions some southern islands, the inhabitants of 
which, having their tongues divided, were capable of speaking two different 
languages at once, and Rabelais, in his account of the monster Hearsay (see 
Works, Bohn's Edit. v. 2, p. 45), observes, that his mouth was slit up to his 
ears, and in it were seven tongues, each of them cleft into seven parts, and 
that he talked with all the seven at once, of different matters, and in divers 
languages. 

3 Demosthenes. 

i William Lilly, the famous astrologer of those times. The House of 
Commons had so great a regard to his predictions, that the author of Mer- 
curius Pragmaticus (JTo. 20) styles the members the sons of Erra Pater, 
an old astrologer, of whose predictions John Taylor, the water poet, makes 
mention. 



CANTO I.] HTTDIBRAS. 9 

For he, by geometric scale, 

Could take the size of pots of ale ; 

Besolve, by sines and tangents straight, 

If bread or butter wanted weight ; * 

And wisely tell what hour o' th' day 1-25 

The clock does strike, by Algebra. 

Beside, he was a shrewd Philosopher, 
And had read ev'ry text and gloss over : 
"Whate'er the crabbed'st author hath, 2 
He understood b' implicit faith : 130 

"Whatever Sceptic could inquire for ; 
For every why he had a wherefore: 3 
Knew more than forty of them do, 
As far as words and terms could go. 
All which he understood by rote, 135 

And, as occasion served, would quote ; 
!Nb matter whether right or wrong ; 
They might be either said or sung. 
His notions fitted things so well, 
That which was which he could not tell ; 140 

But oftentimes mistook the one 
For th' other, as great clerks have done.. 
He could reduce all things to acts, 
And knew their natures by abstracts ; 4 
"Where entity and quiddity, 145 

The ghost of defunct bodies fly ; 5 

1 As a justice of the peace it was his duty to inspect weights and measures : 

" For well his Worship knows, that ale-house sins 
Maintain himself in gloves, his wife in pins." 

A Satyr against Hypocrites, p. 3, 4. 

a If any copy womd warrant it, I should read " author saith." Nash. 

3 That is, he could answer one question by asking another, or elude one 
difficulty by proposing another. Bay gives the phrase as a proverb. See 
Handbook of Proverbs, p. 142. 

* A thing is in potentia, when it is possible, but does not actually exist ; 
a thing is in act, when it is not only possible, but does exist. A thing is 
said to be reduced from power into act, when that which was only possible 
begins really to exist. How far we can know the nature of things by ab- 
stracts, has long been a dispute. See Locke, on the Understanding. 

5 A satire upon the abstract notions of the metaphysicians. Butler humor- 
ously calls the metaphysical essences ghosts or shadows of real substances. 



10 HUDIBEAS. |PA.RT 5.. 

"Where Truth in person does appear, 1 

Like words congeal' d in northern air. 2 

He knew what's what, and that's as high 

As metaphysic wit can fly. 3 150 

In school-divinity as able 
As he that hight irrefragable ; 
A second Thomas, or at once, 
To name them all, another Duns : 4 
Profound in all the nominal, 155 

And real ways, beyond them all ; 
And, with as delicate a hand, 
Could twist as tough a rope of sand ; 5 
And weave fine cobwebs, fit for scull 
That's empty when the moon is full ; 6 ' 1G0 

v Such as take lodgings in a head 
That's to be let unfurnished. 

1 Some authors have represented truth as a real thing or person, whereas 
it is nothing but a right method of putting man's notions or images of things 
into the same state and order that their originals hold in nature. See 
Aristotle, Met. lib. 2. 

2 In Babelais, Pantagruel throws upon deck three or four handfuls of 
frozen words. This notion is humorously elaborated in the Tatler, p. 254, 
and in Munchausen's Travels. 

3 The jest here is in giving a vulgar expression as the translation of the 
" quid est quid" of our old logicians. 

4 These two lines were omitted after the second edition, but restored 
in 1704. This whole passage is* a smart satire upon the old School divines, 
many of whom were honoured with some extravagant epithet, and as 
well known by it as by their proper names : thus Alexander Hales was called 
doctor irrefragable, or invincible ; Thomas Aquinas, the angelic doctor, or 
eagle of divines ; Duns Scotus, the great opponent of the doctrine of Aquinas, 
acquired, by his logical acuteness, the title of the subtle doctor. This last 
was father of the Reals, and William Ockham of the Nominals. See a full 
account of these Schoolmen in Tennemann's Manual (Bohn's edit. p. 243 
et seq.). 

5 A proverbial saying applicable to those who lose their labour by busy- 
ing themselves in trifles, or attempting things impossible. The couplet 
stood thus in the first and all succeeding editions till 1704 : — 

For he a rope of sand could twist 

As tough as learned Sorbonist. 
The proverb is supposed to be derived from the story of the devil being 
baulked of a soul for which he had contracted (under the guise of a doctor 
of the College of Sorbonne), by not being able to make a rope of sand. 

6 That is, subtle questions or foolish conceits, fit for the brain of a lunatic. 



CASIO I.] HUDIBEAS. 11 

He could raise scruples dark and nice, 

And after solve 'em in a trice ; 

As if Divinity had catch'd 165 

The itch, on purpose to be scratch'd ; 

Or, like a mountebank, did wound 

And stab herself with doubts profound, 

Only to show with how small pain 

The sores of Faith are cured again ; 170 

Altho' by woful proof we find 

They always leave a scar behind. 

He knew the seat of Paradise, 

Could tell in what degree it lies ; Y 

And, as he was disposed, could prove it, 175 

Below the moon, or else above it : 

"What Adam dreamt of when his bride 

Came from her closet in his side : 

Whether the devil tempted her 

By a High-Dutch interpreter : 2 180 

If either of them had a navel ; 3 

"Who first made music malleable: 4 

1 This is a banter upon the many learned and laborious treatises which 
have been published on the Site of Paradise ; some affirming it to be above 
the moon, others above the air ; some that it is the whole world, others 
only a part of the north ; some thinking that it was nowhere, whilst others 
supposed it to be God knows where in the West Indies. Budbeck, a 
Swede, asserts that Sweden was the real Paradise. The learned Bishop 
Huet gives a map of Paradise, and says it is situated upon the canal 
formed by the Tigris and Euphrates, near Aracca. Mahomet assured his 
followers, that Paradise was seated in heaven, and that Adam was cast out 
from thence when he transgressed. Humboldt (see Cosmos, Bohn, vol. i. 
p. 364-5) brings up the rear, with telling us that every nation has a Para- 
dise somewhere on the other side of the mountains. 

2 Joh. Goropius Becanus maintained the Teutonic to be the first and most 
ancient language in the world, and assumed it to have been spoken in Paradise. 

3 " Over one of the doors of the King's antechamber at St James's, is a 
picture of Adam and Eve, painted by Mabuse, which formerly hung in the 
gallery at Whitehall, thence called the Adam and Eve Gallery. Evelyn, 
in the preface to his ' Idea of the Perfection of Painting,' mentions this 
picture, and objects to the absurdity of representing Adam and Eve with 
navels." See Sir Thomas Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting. Browne, in his 
Vulgar Errors, has a chapter expressly on this subject, and is, no doubt, 
what the poet is quizzing. 

4 This relates to the idea that music was first invented by Pythagoras, on 
hearing the variations of sound produced by a blacksmith striking his anvi] 
with a hammer — a story which has been frequently ridicukd. 



12 HTJDIBRAS. [PART I. 

"Whether the serpent, at the fall, 

Had cloven feet, or none at all. 1 

All this without a gloss, or comment, 185 

He could unriddle in a moment, 

In proper terms, such as men smatter, 

When they throw out, and miss the matter. 

For his Religion, it was fit 
To match his learning and his wit : 190 

'Twas Presbyterian true blue, 2 
For he was of that stubborn crew 
Of errant 3 saints, whom all men grant 
To be the true church militant : 4 
Such as do build their faith upon 195 

The holy text of pike and gun ; 5 
Decide all controversy by 
Infallible artillery ; 
And prove their doctrine orthodox 
By apostolic blows and knocks ; 200 

Call fire, and sword, and desolation, 
A godly -thorough-Reformation, 
Which always must be carried on, 
And still be doing, never done : 

1 That curse upon the serpent, " on thy belly shalt thou go," seeming to 
imply a deprivation of what he enjoyed before, has been thought to imply 
that the serpent must previously have had feet. Accordingly St Basil says, 
he went erect like a man, and had the use of speech, before the fall. 

2 " True blue," which is found in the old proverb, " true blue will never 
stain," is used here as an indication of stubborn adherence to party, right 
or wrong. There is another reference to it in Part III., Canto II., line 870. 
Blue has immemorially been regarded as the emblematical colour of fidelity, 
and was the usual livery of servants. 

came a velvet justice, with a long 

Great train of blue-coats, twelve or fourteen strong. 

Donne, Sat. I. 

3 Literally, itinerant, such as missionaries. But the poet no doubt uses 
the word " errant " with a double meaning, that is, in the sense of knights 
" errant " as well as " errant " knaves. 

4 The church on earth is called militant, as struggling with temptations, 
and subject to persecutions : but the Presbyterians of those days were liter- 
ally the church militant, fighting with the establishment, and all that op- 
posed them. 

5 Cornet Joyce, when he earned away the king from Holdenby, being 
desired by his Majesty to show his instructions, drew up his troop in the in- 
ner court, and said, " These, sir, are my instructions." 



CANTO I.] HTJDIBBAS. 13 

As if Eeligion were intended 205 

For nothing else but to be mended. 

A sect, whose chief devotion lies 

In odd perverse antipathies : l 

In falling out with that or this, 

And finding somewhat still amiss : 2 210 

More peevish, cross, and splenetick, 

Than dog distract, or monkey sick : 

That with more care keep holy-day 

The wrong, than others the right way : 3 

Compound for sins they are inclined to, 215 

By damning those they have no mind to : 

Still so perverse and opposite, 

As if they worshipp'd Grod for spite. 

The self-same thing they will abhor 

One way, and long another for. 220 

Free-will they one way disavow, 

Another, nothing else allow. 4 

All piety consists therein 

In them, in other men all sin. 

Father than fail, they will defy 225 

That which they love most tenderly ; 

1 The Presbyterians not only opposed some of the articles of belief held 
by others, but also the pastimes and amusements of the people. Among 
other things, they reckoned it sinful to eat plum-porridge, or minced pies, 
at Christmas. The cavaliers, observing the formal carriage of their adver- 
saries, fell into the opposite extreme, and ate and drank plentifully every 
day, especially after the Restoration. 

2 Queen Elizabeth was often heard to say, that she knew very well what 
would content the Catholics, but could never learn what would content 
the Puritans. 

3 In the year 1645, Christmas-day was ordered to be observed as a fast : 
and on the other hand, Oliver, when Protector, was feasted by the lord mayor 
on Ash -"Wednesday. When James the First desired the magistrates of Edin- 
burgh to feast the French ambassadors before their return to France, the 
ministers proclaimed a fast to be kept the same day. The innovation is thus 
wittily satirized in a ballad of the time : 

" Gone are the golden days of yore, 
When Christmas was an high day, 
Whose sports we now shall see no more, — 
'Tis turn'd into Good Friday." 

4 As maintaining absolute predestination, and denying the liberty of man's 
will: at the same time contending for absolute freedom in rites and cere- 
monies, and the discipline of the church. 



14 HTJDIBRAS. [PART I. 

Quarrel with minced pies, and disparage 
Their best and dearest friend, plum-porridge ; 
Fat pig and goose itself oppose, 

And blaspheme custard through the nose. 230 

TV apostles of this fierce religion, 
Like Mahomet's, were ass and widgeon, 1 
To whom our knight, by fast instinct 
Of wit and temper, was so linkt, 
4.s if hypocrisy and nonsense 235 

Had got th' advowson ©f his conscience. 2 

Thus was be gifted and accouter'd, 
We mean on th' inside, not the outward : 
That next of all we shall discuss ; 
Then listen, Sirs, it folio we th thus : 240 

His tawny beard was th' equal grace 
Both of his wisdom and his face ; 
In cut and dye so like a tile, 3 
A sudden view it would beguile : 
The upper part thereof was whey, 245 

The nether orange, rnixt with grey. 
This hairy meteor did denounce 
The fall of sceptres and of crowns ; 4 
"With grisly type did represent 
Declining age of government, 250 



1 The Ass is the milk-white beast called Alborach, which Mahomet tells 
us, in the Koran, the angel Gabriel brought to carry him to the presence 
of God. Alborach refused to let him get up, unless he would promise to 
procure him an entrance into paradise. "Widgeon means the pigeon, which 
Mahomet taught to eat out of his ear, that it might be thought to be the 
means of divine communication. Our poet calls it a widgeon, for the sake 
of equivoque : widgeon, in the figurative sense, signifying a foolish silly 
fellow. 

2 Dr Bruno Ryves, in his Mercurius Eusticus, gives a remarkable instance 
of a fanatical conscience, in a captain, who was invited by a soldier to eat 
part of a goose with him, but refused, because he said it was stolen; but 
being to march away, he, who would eat no stolen goose, made no scruple 
to ride away upon a stolen mare. 

3 In the time of Charles I., the beard was worn sharply peaked in a tri- 
angular form, like the old English tiles. Some had pasteboard cases to put 
over their beards in the night, lest they should get rumpled during their 
sleep. 

4 As a comet is supposed to portend some public calamity, so this par- 
liamentary beard threatened monarchy. 



CA*TO I.] HTTDIBRAS. 15 

And tell, -with hieroglyphic spade. 1 

Its own grave and the state's -were made. 

Like Samson's heart-breakers, it grew 

In time to make a nation rue ; 2 

Tho' it contributed its own fall, 255 

To wait upon the ptiblic downfal : 3 

It was canonic, 4 and did grow 

In holy orders, by strict vow : 5 

Of rule as sullen and severe 

As that of rigid Cordeliere. 6 260 

'TVas bound to suffer persecution 

And martyrdom -with resolution ; 

T' oppose itself against the hate 

And vengeance of th' incensed state : 

In whose defiance it was worn, 2G5 

Still ready to be pull'd and torn, 

With red-hot irons to be tortured, 

Reviled, and spit upon, and martyr'd. 

1 Alluding to the pictures of Time and Death. 

2 Heart-breakers were particular curls worn by the ladies, and sometimes 
by men. Samson's strength consisted in his hair; when that was cut off, 
he was taken prisoner ; when it grew again, he was able to pull down the 
house, and destroy his enemies. 

3 Many of the Presbyterians and Independents swore not to cut their 
beards till monarchy and episcopacy were ruined. Such vows were common 
among the barbarous nations, especially the Germans. Civilis, as we learn 
from Tacitus, having destroyed the Roman legions, cut his hair, which he 
had vowed to let grow from his first taking up arms. And it became at 
length a national custom among some of the Germans, never to trim their 
hair, or their beards, till they had killed an enemy. 

4 The later editions, for canonic, read monastic. 

5 The vow of not shaving the beard till some particular event happened 
was not uncommon in those times. In a humorous poem, falsely ascribed 
to Mr Butler, entitled The Cobler and Vicar of Bray, we read, 

This worthy knight was one that swore 

He would not cut his beard, 
Till this ungodly nation was 

From kings and bishops clear' d. 
"Which holy vow he firmly kept, 

And most devoutly wore 
A grisly meteor on his face, 

Till they were both no more. 

6 An order so called in France, from the knotted cord which they wore 
about their middles. In England they were named Grey Friars, and were 
the strictest branch of the Franciscans. 



1G HTTDIBEAS. [PART I. 

Maugre all which, 'twas to stand fast 

As long as monarchy should last ; 270 

But when the state should hap to reel, 

'Twas to submit to fatal steel, 

And fall, as it was consecrate 

A sacrifice to fall of state ; 

Whose thread of life the fatal sisters l 275 

Did twist together with its whiskers, 

And twine so close, that Time should never, 

In life or death, their fortunes sever ; 

But with his rusty sickle mow 

Both down together at a blow. 280 

So learned Tahacotius, from 

The brawny part of porter's bum, 

Cut supplemental noses, which 

"Would last as long as parent breech : 2 

But when the date of Nock was out, 3 285 

Off dropt the sympathetic snout. 

His back, or rather burthen, show'd 
As if it stoop'd with its own load. 
For as ^Eneas bore his sire 

Upon his shoulders thro' the fire, 290 

Our knight did bear no less a pack 
Of his own buttocks on his back : 
Which now had almost got the upper- 
Hand of his head, for want of crupper. 
To poise this equally, he bore 295 

A paunch of the same bulk before : 
Which still he had a special care 
To keep well-cramm'd with thrifty fare ; 
As white-pot, 4 butter-milk, and curds, 
Such as a country-house affords ; 300 

1 Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, the three destinies whom the ancient 
poets feigned to spin and determine how long the thread of life should last. 

2 Taliacotius was professor of physic and surgery at Bologna, where he 
was horn, 1553. His treatise in Latin, on the art of ingrafting noses, is 
well known. See a very humorous account of him, Tatler, No. 260. 

3 Nock is a British word, signifying a slit or crack, and hence, figura- 
tively, the fundament ; hut the more usual term was nock-andro. Nock, 
Nockys, is used by Gawin Douglas in his version of the iEneid, for the 
bottom or extremity of anything. 

4 A Devonshire dish. 



CAXTO I.] HTJDIBEAS. 17 

With other victual, which anon 
We further shall dilate upon, 
"When of his hose we come to treat, 
The cuphoard where he kept his meat. 

His doublet was of sturdy buff, 305 

And though not sword, yet cudgel-proof, 
"Whereby 'twas fitter for his use, 
"Who fear'd no blows but such as bruise. 1 

His breeches were of rugged woollen, 
And had been at the siege of Bull en ; ?,io 

To old King Harry so well known, 
Some writers held they were his own. 2 
Thro' they were lined with many a piece 
Of ammunition-bread and cheese, 
And fat black-puddings, proper food 315 

Tor warriors that delight in blood. 
For, as we said, he always chose 
To carry vittle in his hose, 
That often tempted rats and mice, 
The ammunition to surprise : 320 

And when he put a hand but in 
The one or th' other magazine, 
They stoutly in defence on't stood, 
And from the wounded foe drew blood ; 
And till th' were storm'd and beaten out, 325 

Ne'er left the fortified redoubt : 
And tho' knights errant, as some think, 
Of old did neither eat nor drink, 3 
Because when thorough deserts vast, 
And regions desolate, they past, 330 

"Where belly-timber above ground, 
Or under, was not to be found, 

1 A man of nice honour suffers more from a kick, or a slap in the face, 
than from a wound. Sir "Walter Raleigh says, to be strucken with a sword 
is like a man, hut to he strucken with a stick is like a slave. 

Henry VIII. hesieged Boulogne in person, July 14, 1544. He was 
very fat, and consequently his breeches very large. See the engravings 
published by the Society of Antiquaries. 

3 "Though I think, says Don Quixote, that I have read as many his- 
tories of chivalry in my time as any other man, I never could find that 
knights errant ever eat, unless it were by mere accident, when they were in- 
vited to great feasts and royal banquets ; at other times, they indulged 
themselves with little other food besides their thoughts." 
c 



13 HTJDIBBAS. [PAKT I. 

Unless they grazed, there's not one word 

Of their provision on record : 

"Which made some confidently write, 335 

They had no stomachs but to fight. 

'Tis false : for Arthur wore in hall 

Round-table like a farthingal, 1 

On which, with shirt pull'd out behind, 

And eke before, his good knights dined. 340 

Tho' 'twas no table some suppose, 

But a huge pair of round trunk-hose : 

In which he carried as much meat 

As he and all his knights could eat, 2 

When laying by their swords and truncheons, 345 

They took their breakfasts, or their nuncheons. 3 

But let that pass at present, lest 

We should forget where we digrest ; 

As learned authors use, to whom 

"We leave it, and to th' purpose come. 350 

His puissant sword unto his side, 
Near his undaunted heart, was tied, 
With basket-hilt, that would hold broth, 
And serve for fight and dinner both. 
In it he melted lead for bullets, 355 

To shoot at foes, and sometimes pullets ; 
To whom he bore so fell a grutch, 
He ne'er gave quarter t' any such. 
The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty, 4 
For want of fighting was grown rusty, 360 

1 The farthingale was a large hoop petticoat worn by the ladies. King 
Arthur is said to have made choice of the round table that his knights 
might not quarrel about precedence. 

2 True- wit, in Ben Jonson's Silent "Woman, says of Sir Amorous La 
Fool, " If he could but victual himself for half-a-year in his breeches, he is 
sufficiently armed to overrun a country." Act 4, sc. 5. 

3 A substitute for a regular meal ; equivalent to what is now called a 
luncheon. Our ancestors in the 13th and 14th century had four meals a 
day, — breakfast at 7; dinner at 10; supper at 4; and livery at 8 or 9 ; soon 
after which they went to bed. The tradesmen and labouring people had 
only three meals a day, — breakfast at 8; dinner at 12; and supper at 6. 
They had no livery. 

4 Toledo, in Spain, famous for the manufacture of swords : the Toledo 
blades were generally broad, to wear on horseback, and of great length, 
suitable to the old Spanish dress. 



CA3"T0 I.] HrDIBEAS. 19 

And ate into itself, for lack 

Of somebody to hew and hack. 

The peaceful scabbard where it dwelt, 

The rancour of its edge had felt : 

For of the lower end two handful 305 

It had devour' d, 'twas so manful, 

And so much scorn' d to lurk in case, 

As if it durst not show its face. 

In many desperate attempts, 

Of warrants, exigents, contempts, 1 370 

It had appear' d with courage bolder 

Than Serjeant Bum, invading shoulder : 2 

Oft had it ta'en possession, 

And pris'ners too, or made them run. 

This sword a dagger had, his page, 375 

That was but little for his age : 3 
And therefore waited on him so, 
As dwarfs upon knights errant do. 
It was a serviceable dudgeon, 4 

Either for fighting or for drudging : 5 3S0 

When it had stabb'd, or broke a head, 
It would scrape trenchers, or chip bread, 
. Toast cheese or bacon, 6 though it were 
To bait a mouse-trap, 'twould not care. 
'Twould make clean shoes, and in the earth 385 

Set leeks and onions, and so forth : 
It had been 'prentice to a brewer, 
Where this, and more, it did endure ; 
But left the trade, as many more 
Have lately done, on the same score. 7 390 

1 Exigent is a writ issued in order to bring a person to an outlawry, if 
he does not appear to answer the suit commenced against him. 

2 Alluding to the method by which bum-bailiffs, as they are called, arrest 
persons, by giving them a tap on the shoulder. 

3 Thus Homer accoutres Agamemnon with a dagger hanging near his 
sword, which he used instead of a knife. Iliad. Lib. iii. 271. 

4 A dudgeon was a short sword, or dagger : from the Teutonic Degen. 

5 Thatis, for domestic uses or any drudgery, such as follows in the next verses. 

6 Corporal Nym says, in Shakspeare's Henry V., " I dare not fight, but 
I will wink, and hold out mine iron : it is a simple one, but what though 
— it will toast cheese." 

7 A joke upon Oliver Cromwell, who was said to be the son of a brewer in 
Huntingdonshire. It was frequently the subject of lampoons during his life- 

c 2 



20 HTJDIBEAS. [PAET I. 

In. th' holsters, at his saddle-bow, 
Two aged pistols he did stow, 
Among the surplus of such meat 
As in his hose he could not get. 

These would inveigle rats with th' scent, 395 

To forage when the cocks were bent ; 
And sometimes catch 'em with a snap, 
As cleverly as th' ablest trap. 
They were upon hard duty still, 

And every night stood sentinel, 400 

To guard the magazine i' th' hose, 
From two-legg'd, and from four-legg'd foes. 

Thus clad and fortified, Sir Knight, 
From peaceful home, set forth to fight. 
But first, with nimble active force, 405 

He got on th' outside of his horse. 1 
For having but one stirrup tied 
T' his saddle, on the further side, 
It was so short, h' had much ado 
To reach it with his desp'rate toe. 410 

But after many strains and heaves, 
He got upon the saddle eaves, 
From whence he vaulted into th' seat, 
With so much vigour, strength, and heat, 
That he had almost tumbled over 415 

"With his own weight, but did recover, 
By laying hold on tail and mane, 
"Which oft he used instead of rein. 

But now we talk of mounting steed, 
Before we further do proceed, 420 

It doth behove us to say something 
Of that which bore our valiant bumkin. 

time. Pride had been a brewer, Hewson and Scott brewers' cle/rks. 

1 Nothing can be more completely droll, than this description of Hudi- 
bras mounting his horse. He had one stirrup tied on the off-side very short, 
the saddle very large; the knight short, fat, and unwieldy, having his 
breeches and pockets stuffed with black puddings and other provision, over- 
acting his effort to mount, and nearly tumbling over on the opposite 
side_; his single spur, we may suppose, catching in some of his horse* s 
furniture. Cleveland identifies this picture in his lines : — " like Sir Sa- 
muel Luke in a great saddle, nothing to be seen but the giddy feather in 
his crown." 



CAXTO I.] "BXDIBRAS. 21 

The beast -was sturdy, large, and tall, 

With mouth of meal, and eyes of -wall ; 

I would say eye, for h' had hut one, 425 

As most agree, though some say none. 

He was well stay'd, and in his gait, 

Preserv'd a grave, majestic state. 

At spur or switch no more he skipt, 

Or mended pace, than Spaniard whipt : T .130 

And yet so fiery, he would hound, 

As if he grieved to touch the ground : 

That Caesar's horse, who, as fame goes, 

Had corns upon his feet and toes, 2 

Was not by half so tender -hooffc, 435 

Nor trod upon the ground so soft : 

And as that beast would kneel and stoop, 

Some write, to take his rider up : 3 

So Hudibras his, 'tis well known, 

"Would often do, to set him down. 440 

"We shall not need to say what lack 

Of leather was upon his back : 

For that was hidden under pad, 

And breech of Knight gall'd full as bad. 

His strutting ribs on both sides show'd 445 

Like furrows he himself had plow'd : 

For underneath the skirt of pannel, 

'Twixt every two there was a channel. 

His draggling tail hung in the dirt, 

"Which on his rider he would flirt, 450 

Still as his tender side he prickt, 

With arm'd heel, or with unarm'd, kickt : 

For Hudibras wore but one spur, 

As wisely knowing, could he stir 

1 This alludes to Sir Roger l'Estrange's story of a Spaniard, who -was 
condemned to run the gauntlet, and disdained to avoid any part of the pun- 
ishment by mending his pace. 

2 Suetonius relates, that the hoofs of Cassar's horse -were divided 
like human toes. See also Montfaucon, Antiquite expliquee, vol. ii. 
p. 58. 

3 Stirrups were not in use in the time of Caesar. Common persons, who 
were active and hardy, vaulted into their seats ; and persons of distinction 
had their horses taught to bend down towards the ground, or else they were 
assisted by their equerries. 



22 HTJDIEEAS, [PAKT I. 

To active trot one side of's horse, 455 

The other would not hang an arse. 1 

A Squire he had, whose name was Ralph, 2 
That in th' adventure went his half. 
Though writers, for more stately tone, 
Do call him Pvalpho, 'tis all one : 460 

And when we can, with metre safe, 
"We'll call him so, if not, plain E,aph. 3 
For rhyme the rudder is of verses, 
"With which, like ships, they steer their courses. 
An equal stock of wit and valour . 465 

He had lain in, by birth a tailor. 
The mighty Tyrian queen that gain'd, 
"With subtle shreds, a tract of land, 4 
Did leave it, with a castle fair, 

To his great ancestor, her heir ; 470 

Prom him descended cross-legg'd knights ; 5 
Famed for their faith and warlike fights 
Against the bloody Cannibal, 6 
Whom they destroy'd both great and small. 

1 This jest had previously appeared in an old hook called Gratice ludentes, 
or Jests from the Universitis, 1638, where it runs thus : " A scholar being 
jeered on the way for wearing hut one spur, said that if one side of his horse 
went on, it was not likely the other would stay behind." - 

2 As the knight was of the Presbyterian party, so the squire was an Ana- 
baptist or Independent. This gives our author an opportunity of charac- 
terizing these several sects, and of showing their joint concurrence against 
the king and church. 

3 Sir Roger L'Estrange supposes, that the original of Ealph was one 
Isaac Robinson, a butcher in Moorfields : another authority thinks that the 
character was designed for Pemble a tailor, one of the committee of seques- 
trators. Grey supposes, that the name of Ralph was taken from the grocer's 
apprentice, in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Knight of the Eurning Pestle." 
Mr Pemberton, who was a relation and godson of Mr Butler, said, that the 
'squire was designed for Ralph Bedford, esquire, member of parliament for 
the town of Bedford. 

4 The allusion is to the well-known story of Dido, who purchased as 
much land as she could surround with an ox's hide. She cut the hide into 
extremely narrow strips, and so obtained twenty-two furlongs. See Virg. 
_3Ineid. lib. i. 367. 

5 A double allusion. Tailors sit at their work in this posture ; and Cru- 
saders are represented on funeral monuments with their legs across. 

6 Tailors, as well as Crusaders, are famed for their faith, though of dif- 
ferent kinds. The words, bloody cannibal, are meant to be equally ap- 
plicable to the Saracens and a louse. 



CASTO I.] HTOIBBAS. 23 

This sturdy Squire had, as well 475 

As the bold Trojan knight, seen hell, 1 

Not with a counterfeited pass 

Of golden bough, but true gold lace. 

His knowledge was not far behind 

The knight's, but of another kind, 4S0 

And he another way came by't ; 

Some call it Gifts, and some New Light. 

A lib'ral art, that costs no pains 

Of study, industry, or brains. 

His wits were sent him for a token, 2 485 

But in the carriage crack' d and broken. 

Like commendation nine-pence, crookt 

"With — to and from my love — it lookt. 3 

He ne'er consider' d it, as loth 

To look a gift-horse in the mouth ; 490 

And very wisely would lay forth 

No more upon it than 'twas worth. 4 

But as he got it freely, so 

He spent it frank and freely too. 

For saints themselves will sometimes be, 495 

Of gifts that cost them nothing, free. 

By means of this, with hem and cough, 

Prolongers to enlighten' d snuff, 5 

He could deep mysteries unriddle, 

As easily as thread a needle ; 500 

1 In allusion to iEneas's descent into hell, and tne tailor's receptacle for 
his filchings, also called hell. 

2 Var. " His wit was sent him." 

3 From this passage, and the proverb "he has brought his noble to 
ninepence," one would be led to conclude, that coins were commonly struck 
of that value ; but only two instances of the kind are recorded by Mr Folkes, 
both during the civil wars, the one at Dublin, and the other at Newark. 
Long before this period, however, by royal proclamation of July 9, 1551, 
the base testoons or shillings of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. were rated at 
ninepence, and these were as abundant as sixpences or shillings until 
1696, when all money not milled was called in. Such pieces were often 
bent and given as love-tokens, and were called "To my love and from my 
love." See Tatler, No. 240. 

4 When the barber came to shave Sir Thomas More, the morning of his 
execution, the prisoner told him, "that there was a contest betwixt the 
King and him for his head, and he would not willingly lay out more upon 
it than it was worth." 

6 Enlighten' d snvff. — This reading, which is confirmed by Butler's Ge- 



24 HTJDIBEAS. [PAET I. 

For as of vagabonds we say, 

That they are ne'er beside their way : 

"Whate'er men speak by this new light, 

Still they are sure to be i' th' right. 

'Tis a dark-lanthorn of the spirit, 505 

"Which none see by but those that bear it : 

A light that falls down from on high, 1 

For spiritual trades to cozen by : 

An ignis fatuus, that bewitches, 

And leads men into pools and ditches, 2 510 

To make them dip themselves, and sound 

For Christendom in dirty pond ; 

To dive, like wild-fowl, for salvation, 

And fish to catch regeneration. 

This light inspires, and plays upon 515 

The nose of saint, like bagpipe drone, 

And speaks through hollow empty soul, 

As through a trunk, or whisp'ring hole, 

Such language as no mortal ear 

But spiritual eaves-droppers can hear. 520 

So Phoebus, or some friendly muse, 

Into small poets song infuse ; 3 

Which they at second-hand rehearse, 

Thro' reed or bag-pipe, verse for verse. 

Thus Ealph became infallible, 525 

As three or four legg'd oracle, 
The ancient cup, or modern chair ; 4 
Spoke truth point blank, though unaware. 

nuine Eemains, seems preferable to "enlightened stuff," and is a good 
allusion. As a lamp just expiring with a faint light, for want of oil, emits 
flashes at intervals ; so the tailor's shallow discourse, like the extempore 
preaching of his brethren, was lengthened out with hems and coughs, wi:h 
stops and pauses, for want of matter. 

1 A burlesque parallel between traders in spiritual gifts, and traders who 
show their goods to advantage by means of sky-lights. 

2 An allusion to the Anabaptists, or Dippers. There were two sorts of 
Anabrptists, one called the Old Men or Aspersi, because they were only 
sprinkled ; the other called New Men or Im?nersi, because they were over- 
whelmed in their rebaptization. See Mercurius Rusticus, No. 3. 

3 Poetry and Enthusiasm are closely allied : a Poet is an Enthusiast in 
jest ; an Enthusiast a Poet in earnest. 

* Alluding to Joseph's divining-cup, Gen. xliv. 5 ; the Pope's infallible 
chair ; and the tripos, or three-legged stool of the priestess of Apollo at 



CANTO I.] HUDOEAS. 25 

For mystic learning wondrous able 

In magic talisman, and cabal, 1 530 

"Whose primitive tradition reaches, 

As far as Adam's first green breeches : 2 

Deep-sigbted in intelligences, 

Ideas, atoms, influences ; 

And mucb of terra incognita, 636 

Th' intelligible world could say ; 3 

A deep occult philosopher, 

As learn'd as the wild Irish are, 4 

Or Sir Agrippa, for profound 

And solid lying much renown'd : 5 540 

Delphi. Four-legg'd oracle probably means telling fortunes from qua- 
drupeds. 

1 Talisman was a magical inscription or figure, engraved or cast by the 
direction of astrologers, under certain positions of the heavenly bodies, and 
thought to have great efficacy as a preservative from diseases and all kinds 
of evil. Cabal, or cabbala, is a sort of divination by letters or numbers : it 
signifies likewise the secret or mysterious doctrines of any religion or sect. 
In the time of Charles II. it obtained its present signification as being 
applied to the intriguing junto composed of Clifford, Ashley, Buck- 
ingham, Arlington, and Lauderdale, the first letters of whose names form 
the word. 

2 The author of the Magia Adamica endeavours to prove, that the learn- 
ing of the ancient Magi was derived from the knowledge which God com- 
municated to Adam in paradise. The second line is a burlesque on the Ge- 
nevan translation of the Bible, Genesis iii., which reads breeches, instead 
of aprons. In Mr Butler's character of an hermetic philosopher we read : 
" he derives the pedigree of magic from Adam's first green breeches ; be- 
cause fig-leaves, being the first covering that mankind wore, are the most 
ancient monuments of concealed mysteries." 

3 " Ideas, according to my philosophy, are not in the soul, but in a su- 
perior intelligible nature, wherein the soul only beholds and contemplates 
them." See Norris's Letter to Dodwell, on the Immortality of the Soul, 
p. 114. Nash. But it is more probable that Butler is alluding to Gabriel 
John's Theory of an Intelligible World, publ. London, 1700 ; a book which 
created much sensation at the time, and is supposed to have furnished Swift 
with some of his material. 

* See the ancient and modern customs of the Irish, in Camden's Britannia, 
and Speed's Theatre of Great Britain. 

5 Agrippa was born at Cologne, ann. 1486, and knighted for his military 
services under the Emperor Maximilian. "WTien very young, he published 
a book De Occulta Philosophid, which contains almost all the stories that 
ever roguery invented, or credulity swallowed, concerning the operations of 
magic. But in his riper years Agrippa was thoroughly ashamed of this 
book, and suppressed it in his collected works. 



26 , HTJDIBEAS. [PAET I. 

lie Anthroposophus, 1 and Floud, 

And Jacob Behinen understood ; 

Knew many an amulet and charm, 

That would do neither good nor harm ; 

In Rosicrucian lore as learned, 2 545 

As he that vere adeptus^ earned. 

He understood the speech of birds 4 

As well as they themselves do words ; 

Could tell what subtlest parrots mean, 

That speak and think contrary clean ; 5 550 

"What member 'tis of whom they talk,^ 

AVhen they cry Eope — and "Walk, Knave, walk. 6 

1 A nickname given to Dr Vaughan, author of a discourse on the condi- 
tion of man after death, entitled, Anthroposophia theomagica, — which, ac- 
cording to Dean Swift, is " a piece of the most unintelligible fustian that 
perhaps was ever published in any language." Eobert Floud (or Fludd), 
sou of Sir Thomas Floud, Treasurer of War to Queen Elizabeth, was Doc- 
tor of Physic, and devoted to occult philosophy. He wrote an apology for 
the Rosicrucians, also a system of physics, called the Mosaic Philosophy, 
and many other mystical works, to the extent of 6 vols, folio. Jacob Beh- 
men was an enthusiast of the same period, and wrote unintelligibly in 
mystical terms. Mr Law, who revived some of his notions, calls him a 
Theosopher. 

2 The Rosicrucians were a sect of hermetical philosophers. They owed 
their origin to a German, named Christian Rosenkreuz, out frequently went 
by other names, such as the Illuminati, the Immortales, the Invisible Bro- 
thers. Their learning had a great mixture of enthusiasm ; and as Lemery, 
the famous chymist, says, " it was an art without an art, whose beginning 
was lying, whose middle was labour, and whose end was beggary." 

3 The title assumed by alchemists, who pretended to have discovered the 
philosopher's stone. 

4 Porphyry, De Abstinentia, lib. iii. cap. 3, contends that animals have a 
language, and that men may understand it ; and the author of the Targum 
on Esther says, that Solomon understood -the speech of birds. 

5 In allusion, no doubt, to the story of Henry the Eighth's parrot, which 
falling into the Thames, cried out, A boat, twenty pounds for a boat, and 
was saved by a waterman, who on restoring him to the king claimed the 
reward. But on an appeal to the parrot he exclaimed, Give the knave a groat. 

6 Alluding probably to Judge Tomlinson, who in a ludicrous speech, on 
swearing in the Sheriffs, said : " Tou are the chief executioners of sentences 
upon malefactors, Mr Sheriffs ; therefore I shall entreat a favour of you. 
I have a kinsman, a rope-maker ; and as I know you will have many oc- 
casions during the year for his services, I commend him to you." A 
satirical tract was published by Edw. Gayton, probably levelled at Colonel 
Hewson, with this title, "Walk, knaves, walk: a discourse intended to 
have been spoken at court," &c. 



CAJffTO I.] HUDIBEA8. 27 

He'd extract numbers out of matter, 1 

And keep them in a glass, like water, 

Of sov'reign power to make men wise : 2 555 

For, dropt in blear, thick-sighted eyes, 

They'd make them see in darkest night, 

Like owls, tho' purblind in the light. 

By help of these, as he profest, 

He had first matter seen undrest : 560 

He took her naked, all alone, 

Before one rag of form was on. 3 

The chaos too he had descry'd, 

And seen quite thro', or else he lied : 

~Not that of pasteboard, which men shew 565 

Eor groats, at fair of Barthol'mew ; 4 

But its great grandsire, first o' th' name, 

Whence that and Beformation came, 

Both cousin-germans, and right able 

T'inveigle and draw in the rabble : 570 

But Beformation was, some say, 

O' th' younger house to puppet-play. 5 

He could foretell whats'ever was, 

By consequence, to come to pass : 

As death of great men, alterations, 575 

Diseases, battles, inundations : 

All this without th' eclipse of th' sun, 

1 Every absurd notion, that could be picked up from the ancients, was 
adopted by the wild enthusiasts of our author's days. Plato, as Aristotle 
informs us, Metaph. lib. i. c. 6, conceived numbers to exist by themselves, 
beside the sensibles, like accidents without a substance. Pythagoras main- 
tained that sensible things consisted of numbers. lb. lib. xi. c. 6. And see 
Plato in his Cratylus. 

2 The Pythagorean philosophy held that there -were certain mystical 
charms in certain numbers. 

Plato held whatsoe'er encumbers 

Or strengthens empire, comes from numbers. Butler's MS. 

3 Thus Cleveland, page 110. " The next ingredient of a diurnal is plots, 
horrible plots, which with wonderful sagacity it hunts dry foot, while they 
are yet in their causes, before materia prima can put on her smock." 

4 The puppet-shows, sometimes called Moralities or Mysteries, exhibited 
Chaos, the Creation, Flood, Nativity, and other subjects of sacred history, on 
pasteboard scenery. These induced many to readthe Old and New Testa- 
ment ; and is therefore called the Elder Brother of the Reformation. 

5 That is, the Sectaries, in their pretence to inspiration, assumed to.be 
passive instruments of the Holy Spirit, directed like puppets. 



28 HTJDIBEAS. [PAST I. 

Or dreadful comet, he hath done 

By Inward Light, a way as good, 

And easy to be understood : 580 

But with more lucky hit than those 

That use to make the stars depose, 

Like knights o' th' post, 1 and falsely charge 

Upon themselves what others forge ; 

As if they were consenting to 585 

All mischief in the world men do : 

Or, like the devil, did tempt and sway 'em 

To rogueries, and then betray 'em. 

They'll search a planet's house, to know 

Who broke and robb'd a house below ; 590 

Examine Venus and the Moon, 

"Who stole, a thimble and a spoon : 2 

And tho' they nothing will confess, 

Yet by their very looks can guess, 

And tell what guilty aspect bodes, 595 

Who stole, and who received the goods. 

They'll question Mars, and, by his look, 

Detect who 'twas "that nimm'd a cloak ; 

Make Mercury confess, and 'peach 

Those thieves which he himself did teach. 3 600 

They'll find, i' th' physiognomies 

O' th' planets, all men's destinies ; 

Like him that took the doctor's bill, 

And swallow'd it instead o' th' pill. 4 

Cast the nativity o' th' question, 5 605 

And from positions to be guest on, 

1 Knights of the post -were infamous persons, who attended the courts of 
justice, to swear for hire anything that' might he required, and even to 
confess themselves guilty of crimes, upon sufficient remuneration : they ac- 
quired the designation from their habit of loitering at the posts on -which 
the sheriffs' proclamations were affixed. 

2 Alluding to the old notion, that the moon was the repository of all 
things that were lost or stolen. 

3 Mercury is the god of thieves, and Mars of pirates. 

4 This alludes to a well-known story told in Henry Stephens's apology 
for Herodotus. A physician, having prescribed for a countryman, gave him 
the paper, desiring him to take it, which he did literally, wrapping it up like 
a bolus, and was cured. 

5 In casting a nativity, astrologers considered it necessary to have the ex- 
act time of birth ; but in the absence of this, the position of the heavens at 
the minute the question was asked was taken as a substitute. 



CA>*TO I.] HTTDIBEAS. 29 

As sure as if they knew the moment 

Of Native's birth, tell what will come on't. 

They'll feel the pulses of the stars, 

To find out agues, coughs, catarrhs : 610 

And tell what crisis does divine 

The rot in sheep, or mange in swine : 

In men, what gives or cures the itch, 

"What made them cuckolds, poor, or rich ; 

"What gains, or loses, hangs, or saves, 615 

"What makes men great, what fools, or knaves ; 

"But not what wise, for only of those 

The stars, they say, cannot dispose, 1 

No more than can the astrologians. 

There they say right, and like true Trojans. 620 

This Ralpho knew, and therefore took 

The other course, of which we spoke. 2 

Thus was th' accomplish'd squire endued 
With gifts and knowledge per'lous shrewd. 
Never did trusty squire with knight, 625 

Or knight with squire, jump more right. 
Their arms and equipage did fit, 
As well as virtues, parts, and wit : 
Their valours too, were of a rate, 
And out they sallied at the gate. 630 

Few miles on horseback had they jogged, 
But fortune unto them turn'd dogged ; 
For they a sad adventure met, 
Of which anon we mean to treat : 
But ere we venture to unfold 635 

Achievements so resolved and bold, 
We should, as learned poets use, 
Invoke th' assistance of some Muse ; 
However critics count it sillier, 

Than jugglers talking t' a familiar : 640 

We think 'tis no great matter which ; 
They're all alike, yet we shall pitch 

1 Sapiens dominabitur astris (the wise man will govern the stars), was 
an old proverb among the astrologers. Bishop Warburton observes, that the 
obscurity in these lines arises from the double' sense of the word dispose ; 
when it relates to the stars, it signifies influence ; when it relates to astro- 
logers, it signifies deceive. 

2 i. e. did not take to astrological, but to religious imposture. 



30 HTJDIBEAS. [PART I. 

On one that fits our purpose most, 
"Whom therefore thus we do accost : — 

Thou that with ale, or viler liquors, 645 

Didst inspire "Withers, Pryn, and Vickars, 1 
And force them, though it were in spite 
Of Nature, and their stars, to write ; 
Who, as we find in sullen writs, 
And cross-grain'd works of modern wits, 650 

With vanity, opinion, want, 
The wonder of the ignorant, 
The praises of the author, penn'd 
By himself, or wit-insuring friend ; 
The itch of picture in the front, 655 

With bays, and wicked rhyme upon't, 
Ail that is left o' th' forked hill 2 
To make men scribble without skill ; 
Canst make a poet, spite of fate, 
And teach all people to translate ; 660 

Though out of languages, in which 
They understand no part of speech ; 
Assist me but this once, I 'mplore, 
And I shall trouble thee no more. 

In western clime there is a town, 3 665 

To those that dwell therein well known, 
Therefore there needs no more be said here, 
We unto them refer our reader ; 
For brevity is very good, 

When w' are, or are not understood. 4 67C 

To this town people did repair 
On days of market, or of fair, 



1 George Wither, a violent party writer, and author of many poetical 
pieces ; William Prynne, a voluminous writer, and author of the Histrio- 
mastix, for which he lost his ears ; John Vickars, a fierce parliamentary 
zealot. A list of the works of these and other writers of the period will be 
found in Lowndes, Bibl. Manual. 

2 That is, Parnassus, supposed to he cleft on the summit. 

3 He probably means Brentford, about eight miles west of London. See 
Part ii. Cant. iii. ver. 996. 

4 " If we are understood, more words are unnecessary ; if we are not likely 
to he understood, they are useless." Charles II. answered the Earl of 
Manchester with the above couplet, only changing very for ever, when he 
was making a long speech in favour of the dissenters. 



CANTO I.] HUniBEAS. 31 

And to erack'd fiddle, and hoarse tabor, 

In merriment did drudge and labour ; 

But now a sport more formidable 675 

Had raked together village rabble : 

'Twas an old way of recreating, 

Which learned butchers call bear-baiting ; 

A bold advent'rous exercise, 

AVith ancient heroes in high prize ; 630 

For authors do affirm it came 

From Isthmian or Nemean game ; 

Otbers derive it from the bear 

That's fix'd in northern hemisphere, 

And round about the pole does make 685 

A circle, like a bear at stake, 

That at the chain's end wheels about, 

And overturns the rabble-rout. 

For after solemn proclamation, 1 

In the bear's name, as is the fashion, 690 

According to the law of arms, 

To keep men from inglorious harms, 

That none presume to come so near 

As forty feet of stake of bear ; 

If any yet be so fool-hardy, 695 

T' expose themselves to vain jeopardy, 

If they come wounded off, and lame, 

No honour's got by such a maim, 

Altho' the bear gain much, b'ing bound 

In honour to make good his ground, 700 

When he's engag'd, and take no notice, 

If any press upon him, who 'tis, 

But lets them know, at their own cost, 

That he intends to keep his post. 

This to prevent, and other harms, 705 

Which always wait on feats of arms, 

For in the hurry of a fray 

'Tis hard to keep out of harm's way. 

Thither the Knight his course did steer 

To keep the peace 'twixt dog and bear, 7io 

1 The proclamation here mentioned was usually made at hear or bull- 
baiting. The people, were warned by the steward not to come within 40 
feet of the bull or bear, at their peril. 



32 HTTDIBKAS. [PAKT I. 

As he believed h' was bound to do 
In conscience, and commission too ; l 
And therefore thus bespoke the Squire : — 

"We that are wisely mounted higher 
Than constables, in curule wit, 715 

When on tribunal bench we sit, 2 
Like speculators, should foresee, 
From Pharos 3 of authority, 
Portended mischiefs farther than 
Low proletarian tything-men : 4 720 

And therefore being inform'd by bruit, 
That dog and bear are to dispute ; 
Por so of late men fighting name, 
Because they often prove the same ; 
Por where the first does hap to be, 725 

The last does coineidere. 
Quantum in nobis, have thought good 
To save th' expense of Christian blood, 
And try if we, by mediation 

Of treaty, and accommodation, 730 

Can end the quarrel, and compose 
The bloody duel without blows. 

Are not our liberties, our lives, 
The laws, religion, and our wives, 

1 The Presbyterians and Independents were great enemies to those sports 
with which the country people amused themselves, and which King 
James had most expressly encouraged, and even countenanced on a Sunday, 
as well by act of Parliament as by writing his "Book of Sports" (pub- 
lished 1618) in their favour. Hume, anno 1660, says, "All recreations 
were in a manner suspended, by the rigid severity of the Presbyterians 
and Independents ; even bear-baiting was esteemed heathenish and un- 
christian ; the sport of it, not the inhumanity, gave offence. Colonel 
Hewson, in his pious zeal, marched with his regiment into London, and 
destroyed all the bears which were there kept for the diversion of the 
citizens. This adventure seems to have given birth to the fiction of 
Hudibras." 

2 Some of the chief magistrates in Rome were said to hold curule offices, 
from the chair of state or chariot they rode in, called sella curulis. 

3 Pharos, a celebrated light-house of antiquity, 500 feet high, whence the 
English word Pharos, a watch-tower. 

4 Proletarii were the lowest class of people among the Romans : by af- 
fixing this term to tythingmen, the knight implies the little estimation in 
which they were held. 



CANTO I.] HUDIBEAS. 33 

Enough at once to lie at stake 735 

For Cov'nant, 1 and the Cause's sake ? 2 

But in that quarrel dogs and bears. 

As -well as we, must venture theirs ? 

This feud, by Jesuits invented, 

By evil counsel is fomented ; 740 

There is a Machiavelian plot, 

Tho' ev'ry nare olfact it not ; 3 

A deep design in't, to divide 

The well-affected that confide, 

By setting brother against brother 745 

To claw and curry one another. 

Have we not enemies phis satis, 

That cane et angue pejus* hate us ? 

And shall we turn our fangs and claws 

Upon our own selves, without cause ? 750 

That some occult design doth be 

In bloody cynarctomachy, 5 

Is plain enough to him that knows 

How saints lead brothers by the nose. 

I wish myself a pseudo-prophet, 755 

But sure some mischief will come of it, 

1 This was the Solemn League and Covenant, which was first framed and 
aken by the Scottish parliament, and by them sent to the parliament of 

England, in order to unite the two nations more closely in religion. It. was 
■eceived and taken by both houses, and by the City of London, and ordered 

to be read in all the churches throughout the kingdom ; and every person 
vas bound to give his consent by holding up his hand at the reading of it. 

See a copy of it in Clarendon's Hist, of the Rebellion. 

2 Sir William Dugdale informs us, that Mr Bond, preaching at the 
Savoy, told his auditors from the pulpit, " That they ought to contribute, 
and pray, and do all they were able to bring in their brethren of Scotland, 
for settling of God's cause : I say, quoth he, this is God's cause, and if our 
God hath any cause, this is it ; and if this be not God's cause, then God is 
no God for me. ; but the devil is got up into heaven." 

3 Meaning, though every nose do not smell it. Nare from Nares, the 
Latin for nostrils. 

4 A proverbial saying, used by Horace, expressive of bitter aversion. 
The punishment for parricide among the Romans was, to be put into a 
sack with a snake, a dog, and an ape, and thrown into the river. 

5 A compound of three Greek words, signifying a fight between dogs and 
bears. Colonel Cromwell, finding the people of Uppingham, in Rutland- 
shire, bear-baiting on the Lord's-day, caused the bears to be seized, tied to 
a tree, and shot. 

D 



34 HUDIBEAS. [PAET I. 

Unless by providential wit, 

Or force, we averruncate * it. 

For what design, what interest, 

Can beast have to encounter beast ? 760 

They fight for no espoused Cause, 

Trail privilege, fundamental laws, 2 

Nor for a thorough Reformation, 

Nor Covenant, nor Protestation, 3 

Nor liberty of consciences, 4 765 

Nor lords' and commons' ordinances ; 5 

Nor for the church, nor for church-lands, 

To get them in their own no hands ; 6 

Nor evil counsellors to bring 

To justice, that seduce the king ; 770 

Nor for the worship of us men, 

Tho' we have done as much for them. 

Th' Egyptians worshipp'd dogs, 7 and for 

Tbeir faith made internecine war. 

Others adored a rat, 8 and some 775 

For that church suffer' d martyrdom. 

1 To eradicate, or pluck up by the root. 

2 The lines that follow recite the grounds on which the Parliament began 
the war against the king, and justified their proceedings. Butler calls the 
privileges of parliament frail, because they were so very apt to complain of 
their being broken. Whatever the king did, or refused to do, contrary to 
the sentiments, they voted a breach of their privilege ; his dissenting to any 
of the bills they offered him was a breach of privilege ; his proclaiming 
them traitors, who were in arms against him, was a high breaoh of their 
privilege : and the Commons at last voted it a breach of privilege for the 
House of Lords to refuse assent to anything that came from the lower house. 

3 The Protestation was a solemn vow entered into, and subscribed, the 
first year of the long parliament. 

4 The early editions have it Nor for free liberty of conscience ; and this 
reading Bishop Warburton approves ; " free liberty" being, as he thinks, a 
satirical periphrasis for licentiousness, which is what the author here hints at. 

5 The king being driven from the Parliament, no legal acts could be 
made. An ordinance (says Cleveland, p. 109) is a law still-born, dropt 
before quickened by the royal assent. '"Tis one of the parliament's by- 
blows, Acts only being legitimate, and hath no more sire than a Spanish 
gennet, that is begotten by the wind." 

c No hands here mean paws. 

7 Anubis, one of their gods, was figured with a dog's face. The Egyptians 
also worshipped cats ; see an instance in Diodorus Siculus of their putting 
a Roman noble to death for killing a cat, although by mistake. 

5 The Ichneumon, or water-rat of the Nile, called also Pharaoh's rat, 
which destroys the eggs of the Crocodile. 



CANTO I.] HUDIBBAS. 35 

The Indians fought for the truth 

Of th' elephant and monkey's tooth ; l 

And many, to defend that faith, 

Fought it out mordicus to death. 2 780 

But no beast ever was so slight, 3 

For man, as for his god, to fight ; 

They have more wit, alas ! and know 

Themselves and us better than so. 

But we, who only do infuse 785 

The rage in them like boute-feus,* 

'Tis our example that instils 

In them th' infection of our ills. 

For, as some late philosophers 

Have well observed, beasts that converse 790 

"With man take after him, as hogs 

Get pigs all the year, and bitches dogs. 

Just so, by our example, cattle 

Learn to give one another battle. 

We read, in Nero's time, the Heathen, 795 

"When they destroy' d the Christian brethren, 

They sew'd them in the skins of bears, 5 

And then set dogs about their ears ; 

From whence, no doubt, th' invention came 6 

Of this lewd anti christian game. B0< 

To this, quoth Balpho, Verily 
The point seems very plain to me ; 
It is an anti christian game, 
Unlawful both in thing and name. 
First, for the name ; the word bear-baiting 805 

Is carnal, and of man's creating; 7 

1 The inhabitants of Ceylon and Siam worshipped the teeth of monkeys 
and elephants. The Portuguese, out of zeal for the Christian religion, de- 
stroyed these idols ; and the Siamese are said to have offered 700,000 ducats 
to redeem a monkey's tooth which they had long worshipped. See Lin- 
schoten's, Le Blanc's, and Herbert's Travels. 

2 Valiantly, tooth and nail. 3 That is, so silly. 4 Incendiaries. 

5 See Tacitus, Annals, B. xv. c. 44. (Bohn's transl. vol. i. p. 423.) 

6 Alluding probably to Prynne's Histrio-mastix, p. 556 and 583, who ha< 
endeavoured to prove it such from the 61st canon of the sixth Council ot 
Constantinople, which he has thus translated : " Those ought also to be 
subject to six years' excommunication who carry about bears, or such like 
creatures, for sport, to the hurt of simple people." 

7 The Assembly of Divines, in their Annotations on Genesis i. 1, assail 
the King for creating honours. 



3(5 HUDIBEAS. [VATLT I. 

For certainly there's no such word 

In all the Scripture on record : 

Therefore unlawful, and a sin ; \ 

And so is, secondly, the thing : 810 

A vile assembly 'tis, that can 

No more be proved by Scripture, than 

Provincial, Classic, National ; 2 

Mere human creature-cobwebs all. 

Thirdly, it is idolatrous ; 815 

For when men run a- whoring thus 3 

"With their inventions, whatsoe'er 

The thing be, whether dog or bear, 

It is idolatrous and pagan, 

No less than worshipping of Dagon. 820 

Quoth Hudibras, I smell a rat ; 
Ealpho, thou dost prevaricate : 
For though the thesis which thou lay'st 
Be true, ad amus-sim, 4 as thou say'st ; 
For that bear-baiting should appear, 825 

Jure divino, lawfuller 
Than synods are, thou dost deny 
Totidem verbis ; so do I : 
Yet there's a fallacy in this ; 

For if* by sly homoeosis? 830 

Thou wouldst sophistically imply 
Both are unlawful, I deny. 

And I, quoth Balpho, do not doubt 
But bear-baiting may be made out, 
In gospel-times, as lawful as is 835 

Provincial, or parochial Classis ; 

1 The disciplinarians held, that the Scriptures were full and express on 
every subject, and that everything was sinful which was not there directed. 
Some of the Huguenots refused to pay rent to their landlords, unless they 
could produce a text of Scripture directing them to do so. 

2 These words represent things of man's invention, therefore carnal and 
unlawful. The vile assembly means the bear-baiting, but alludes covertly 
to the Assembly of Divines. 

3 See Psalm cvi. 38. 4 Exactly true, and according to rule. 

5 The explanation of a thing by something resembling it. Between this 
line and the next, the following couplet is inserted in several editions : — 

Tussis pro crepitu, an art 
Under a cough to slur a f— rt. 



CAJJTO I.] HTTDIBEAS. 37 

And that both are so near of kin, 

And like in all, as well as sin, 

That, put 'em in a bag and shake 'em, 

Yourself o' th' sudden would mistake 'em, 840 

And not know which is which, unless 

Tou measure by their wickedness ; 

For 'tis not hard t' imagine whether 

O' th' two is worst, tho' I name neither. 

Quoth Hudibras, Thou offer'st much, 845 

But art not able to keep touch. 
Mira de lente, 1 as 'tis i' th' adage, 
Id est, to make a leek a cabbage ; 
Thou canst at best but overstrain 
A paradox, and th' own hot brain ; 2 850 

For what can synods have at all 
"With bear that's analogical ? 
Or what relation has debating 
Of church-affairs with bear-baiting ? 
A just comparison still is 855 

Of things ejusdem generis : 
And then what genus rightly doth 
Include, and comprehend them both ? 3 
If animal, both of us may 

As justly pass for bears as they ; 860 

For we are animals no less, 
Although of diff 'rent specieses. 4 
But, Ealpho, this is no fit place, 
Nor time, to argue out the case : 
For now the field is not far off, 865 

Where we must give the world a proof 

1 Great cry and little wool, as they say when any one talks much, and 
proves nothing. 

a The following lines are substituted, in some editions, for 849 and 
850:— 

Thou wilt at best but suck a bull, 
Or shear swine, all cry and no wool ; 
Such a bull is explained by the proverb, " As wise as "Waltham's Calf, 
that ran nine miles to suck a bull." See Handbook of Proverbs, p. 322. 

* The first and second editions read : 

Compr'hend them inclusive both. 

* The additional syllable is humorous, and no doubt intended. 



38 HUDIBEAS. [PART I. 

Of deeds, not words, and such as suit 

Another manner of dispute : 

A controversy that affords 

Actions for arguments, not words ; 870 

Which we must manage at a rate 

Of prowess and conduct, adequate 

To what our place and fame doth promise, 

And all the godly expect from us. 

Nor shall they be deceived, unless 875 

W are slurr'd and outed by success ; 

Success, the mark no mortal wit 

Or surest hand can always hit : 

For whatsoe'er we perpetrate, 

We do but row, w' are steer' d by fate, 1 880 

Which in success oft disinherits, 

For spurious causes, noblest merits. 

Great actions are not always true sons 

Of great and mighty resolutions ; 

Nor do the bold'st attempts bring forth 885 

Events still equal to their worth ; 

But sometimes fail, and in their stead 

Fortune and cowardice succeed. 

Tet we have no great cause to doubt, 

Our actions still have borne us out ; 890 

Which, tho' they're known to be so ample, 

We need not copy from example ; 

We're not the only persons durst 

Attempt this province, nor the first. 

In northern clime a val'rous knight 2 895 

Did whilom kill his bear in fight, 

And wound a fiddler : we have both 

Of these the objects of our wroth, 

And equal fame and glory from 

Th' attempt, or victory to come. 900 

1 The Presbyterians were great fatalists, and set up the doctrine of pre- 
destination to meet all contingencies. 

2 Hndibras encourages himself by two precedents ; first, that of a gentle- 
man who killed a bear and wounded a fiddler ; and secondly, that of Sir 
Samuel Luke, who had often, as a magistrate, been engaged in similar ad- 
ventures. 



CANTO I.] HUDIBEAS. 39 

'Tis sung, there is a valiant Maraaluke 

In foreign land, yclep'd ' 

To whom we have heen oft compared 

For person, parts, address, and beard ; 

Both equally reputed stout, 905 

And in the same Cause hoth have fought. 

He oft, in such attempts as these, 

Came off with glory and success : 

]N"or will we fail in th' execution, 

For want of equal resolution. 910 

Honour is, like a widow, won 

"With brisk attempt, and putting on ; 

"With ent'ring manfully and urging ; 

]N"ot slow approaches, like a virgin. 2 

This said, as erst the Phrygian knight, 3 915 

So ours, with rusty steel did smite 
His Trojan horse, and just as much 
He mended pace upon the touch ; 
But from his empty stomach groan' d, 
Just as that hollow beast did sound, 920 

And, angry, answer' d from behind, 
With brandish' d tail and blast of wind. 
So have I seen, with armed heel, 
A wight bestride a Common-weal, 4 

1 Sir Samuel Luke. See the note at line 14. The Mamalukes were per- 
sons carried off, in their childhood, from various provinces of the Ottoman 
empire, and sold in Constantinople and Grand Cairo. They often rose first 
to be cachefs or lieutenants ; and then to be beys or petty tyrants. In 
like manner in the English civil wars, many rose from the lowest rank in 
life to considerable power. 

2 These four lines are no doubt in allusion to a celebrated but somewhat 
indecent proverb, first quoted in Nath. Smith's Quakers' Sjriritual Court, 
1669, and adopted by Eay, with an amusing apology. See Bohn's Hand- 
book of Proverbs, page 43. 

3 Laocoon ; who, at the siege of Troy, susuecting treachery, struck the 
wooden horse with his spear. 

4 Our poet might possibly have in mind a print engraved in Holland. 
It represented a cow, the emblem of the Common- wealth, with the King of 
Spain on her back kicking and spurring her ; the Queen of England before, 
stopping and feeding her ; the Prince of Orange milking her ; and the Duke 
of Anjou behind pulling her back by the tail. After the Spaniards, in a 
war of forty years, had spent an hundred millions of crowns, and had lost 
four hundred thousand men, they were forced to acknowledge the independ- 
ence of the Dutch. 



40 



[PAET I. 



While still the more he kick'd and spurr'd, 
The less the sullen jade has stirr'd. 1 



1 Mr Butler had been witness to the refractory humour of the nation, not 
only under the weak government of Richard Cromwell, but in many instances 
under the resolute management of Oliver. 





PART II. CANTO IL 




iw.,^^^^^^^-' 



AEGUMENT. 



The catalogue and character 

Of th' enemy's best men of war ; ' 

"Whom, in a bold harangue, the Knight 2 

Defies, and challenges to fight : 

H' encounters Talgol, routs the Bear, 

And takes the Fiddler prisoner ; 

Conveys him to enchanted castle, 

There shuts him fast in wooden Bastile. 



1 .Butler's description of the combatants resembles the list of warriors in 
the Iliad and JEneid, and especially the laboured characters in the Theban 
war, both in iEschylus and Euripides. See Septem contra Thebas, v. 
383 ; Supplices, v. 362 ; Phcenis. v. 1139. 

2 In the first edition this and the next two lines stand thus : 

To whom the Knight does make a Speech, 

And they defie him : after which 

He fights with Talgol, routs the Bear, 




PART I. CANTO II. 

jHEEE was an ancient sage philosopher l 
That had read Alexander Eoss over, 2 
And swore the world, as he conld prove, 
Was made of fighting, and of love. 
Just so romances are, for what else 5 

Is in them all but love and battles ? 3 

O' th' first of these w' have no great matter 

To treat of, but a world o' th' latter : 

In which to do the injured right, 

"We mean in what concerns just fight. 10 

Certes, our Authors are to blame, 

For to make some well-sounding name 

A pattern fit for modern knights 

To copy out in frays and fights, 

Like those that do a whole street raze, 15 

To build a palace in the place ; 4 

They never care how many others 

They kill, without regard of mothers, 

1 Empedocles, a Pythagorean philosopher and poet, held that concord 
and discord were the two principles (one formative, the other destructive) 
which regulated the four elements that compose the universe. The great 
anachronism in these two celebrated lines increases the humour. Empedocles 
lived about 2100 years before Alexander Eoss. 

2 Alexander Ross was a very voluminous writer, and chaplain to Charles 
the First. He wrote a " View of all Religions," which had a large sale ; an 
answer to Sir Thomas Browne's Pseudoxia and Religio Medici; Commen- 
taries on Hobbes ; Mystagogus Poetious, or the Muses' Interpreter ; and 
many other works. Addison, in the Spectator, No. 60, says, he has heard 
these lines of Hudibras more frequently quoted than the finest pieces of wit 
in the whole poem, observing that the jingle of the double rhyme has 
something in it that tickles the ear. 

3 Mr Butler, in his MS. Common Place-book, says, 

Love and fighting is the sum 

Of all romances, from Tom Thumb 

To Arthur, Gondibert, and Hudibras. 

4 Alluding, it is supposed, to the Protector Somerset, who, in the reign of 
Edward VI., pulled down two churches, part of St Paul's, and three bishops' 
houses, to build Somerset House in the Strand. 



CA.XTO II.] HUDIBEAS 43 

Or wives, or children, so they can 

Make up some fierce, dead-doing man, 20 

Composed of many ingredient valours, 

Just like the manhood of nine tailors. 

So a wild Tartar, when he spies 

A man that's handsome, valiant, wise, 

If he can kill him, thinks t' inherit 25 

His wit, his beauty, and his spirit ; l 

As if just so much he enjoy'd, 

As in another is destroy'd : 

For when a giant's slain in fight, 

And mow'd o'erthwart, or cleft downright, 3C 

It is a heavy case, no doubt, 

A man should have his brains beat out, 

Because he's tall, and has large bones, 2 

As men kill beavers for their stones. 3 

But, as for our part, we shall tell 35 

The naked truth of what befell, 

And as an equal friend to both 

The Knight and Bear, but more to troth ; 

"With neither faction shall take part, 

But give to each his due desert, 40 

And never coin a formal lie on't, 

To make the Knight o'ercome the giant. 

This b'ing profest, we've hopes enough, 

And now go on where we left off. 

They rode, but authors having not 45 

Determin'd whether pace or trot, 
That is to say, whether tollutation, 4 
As they do term't, or succussation, 5 

1 In Carazan, a province of Tartary, Dr Heylin says, " they have an use, 
■when any stranger comes into their houses of an handsome shape, to kill 
him in the night; that the soul of such a comely person might remain 
among them." See also Spectator, No. 126. 

2 Alluding prohably to the case of Lord Capel and other brave cavaliers, 
whom the Independents " durst not let live." 

3 Their testes were supposed to furnish a medicinal drug of value. See 
Juvenal, Sat. xii. 1. 34. Browne's Vulgar Errors, III. 4. 

4 Tollutation is pacing, or ambling, moving per latera, as Sir Thomas 
Browne says, that is, lifting both legs of one side together. 

5 Succussation, or trotting, is lifting one foot before, and the cross foot 
behind. 



41 HUDIBEAS. [PABT I. 

We leave it, and go on, as now 

Suppose they did, no matter how ; so 

Yet some, from subtle hints, have got 

Mysterious light it was a trot : 

But let that pass ; they now begun 

To spur their living engines on : 

For as whipp'd tops and bandied balls, 55 

The learned, hold, are animals ; l 

So horses they affirm to be 

Mere engines made by geometry ; 

And were invented first from engines, 

As Indian Britons were from Penguins. 2 60 

So let them be, and, as I was saying, 

They their live engines plied, 3 not staying 

Until they reach' d the fatal champaign 

"Which th' enemy did then encamp on ; 

The dire Pharsahan plain, 4 where battle 65 

"Was to be waged 'twist puissant cattle, 

And fierce auxiliary men, 

That came to aid their brethren ; 

"Who now began to take the field, 

As knight from ridge of steed beheld. 70 

1 Alluding to the atomic theory. Democritus, Epicurus, &c, and some 
of the moderns likewise, as Des Cartes, Hobbes, and others, deny that there 
is a vital principle in animals, and maintain that life and sensation are 
generated from the contexture of atoms, and are nothing but local motion 
and mechanism. By which argument tops and balls in motion are presumed 
to be as much animated as dogs and horses, 

2 This is meant to ridicule the opinion adopted by Selden, that America 
had formerly been discovered by the Britons or Welsh ; inferred from the 
similarity of some words in the two languages, especially Penguin, the 
British name of a bird with a white head, which in America signifies a 
white rock. Butler implies, that it is just as likely horses were derived 
from engines, as that the Britons came from Penguins. Mr Selden, in his 
note on Drayton's Polyolbion, says, that Madoc, brother to David ap Owen, 
Prince of Wales, made a sea-voyage to Florida, about the year 1170, and 
Humphry Llwyd, in his history of Wales, reports, that one Madoc, son of 
Owen Gwynedd, Prince of Wales, some hundred years before Columbus 
discovered the West Indies, sailed into those parts, and planted a colony ; 
an idea which Southey has beautifully developed in his " Madoc." 

s That is, Hudibras and his Squire spurred their horses. 
4 Alluding to Pharsalia, where Julius Caesar gained his signal victory 
over Pompey the Great, of which see Lucan's Pharsalia. 



CANTO II.J HUDIBRAS. 45 

For, as our modern wits behold, 

Mounted a pick-back on the old, 1 

Much further off ; much further he 

Eais'd on his aged beast, could see ; 

Yet not sufficient to descry 75 

All postures of the enemy ; 

"Wherefore he bids the squire ride further, 

T' observe their numbers, and their order ; 

That when their motions he had known, 

He might know how to fit his own. 80 

Meanwhile he stopp'd his willing steed, 

To fit himself for martial deed : 

Both kinds of metal he prepared, 

Either to give blows, or to ward ; 

Courage and steel, both of great force, 85 

Prepared for better, or for worse. 2 

His death-charged pistols he did fit well, 

Drawn out from life-preserving vittle ; 3 

These being primed, with force he labour'd 

To free's blade from retentive scabbard ; 90 

And after many a painful pluck, 

From rusty durance he bail'd tuck : 4 

Then shook himself, to see that prowess 

In scabbard of his arms sat loose ; 

And, raised upon his desp'rate foot, 95 

On stirrup-side he gazed about, 5 

Portending blood, like blazing star, 

The beacon of approaching war. 6 

1 Ridiculing the disputes formerly subsisting between the advocates for 
ancient and modern learning. Sir William Temple observes : that as to 
knowledge, the moderns must have more than the ancients, because they 
have the advantage both of theirs and their own : which is commonly illus- 
trated by a dwarf standing upon a giant's shoulders, and therefore seeing 
more and further than the giant. 

2 These two lines, 85 and 86, were in the later editions altered to — 

Courage within and steel without, 
To give and to receive a rout. 

3 The reader will remember how the holsters were furnished. See note 
at p. 19. 

4 Altered in later editions to — He cleared at length the rugged tuck. 

5 It will be seen at Canto i. line 407, that he had but one stirrup. 

6 Comets and Meteors were held to be portentous. See Spenser on Pro- 
digies, 1658. 



46 HUDIBEAS. [PART I 

The Squire advanced with greater speed 

Than could b' expected from his steed ; 1 100 

But far more in returning made ; 

For now the foe he had survey' d, 2 

Ranged, as to him they did appear, 

With van, main battle, wings, and rear. 

I' th' head of all this warlike rabble, 105 

Crowdero march' d, expert and able. 3 
Instead of trumpet, and of drum, 
That makes the warrior's stomach come, 
Whose noise whets valour sharp, like beer 
By thunder turn'd to vinegar ; 110 

For if a trumpet sound, or drum beat, 
.Who has not a month's mind 4 to combat ? 
A squeaking engine he applied 
Unto his neck, on north-east side, 5 
Just where the hangman does dispose, 115 

To special friends, the fatal noose : 6 
For 'tis great grace, when statesmen straight 
Despatch a friend, let others wait. 
His warped ear hung o'er the strings, 
Which was but souse to chitterlings : 7 120 

1 In the original edition, these two lines were : — 

Ralpho rode on with no less speed 
Than Hugo in the forest did. 
Hugo was scout-master to Gondibert, and was sent in advance to recon- 
noitre. 

2 The first two editions read: — 

But with a great deal more return'd, 
For now the foe he had discern'd. 

3 A nick-name, taken from the instrument he used : Crowde, a fiddle, 
from the Welsh crwth. The original of this character is supposed to be 
one Jackson a milliner, who lived in the New Exchange, in the Strand. He 
had lost a leg in the service of the Roundheads, and was reduced to the 
necessity of fiddling from one ale-house to another for his bread. 

4 Used ironically, for no very strong desire. It has been ingeniously 
conjectured that the term 'a month's mind' is derived from a woman's 
longing in her first month of gestation. 

5 It is difficult to say, why Butler calls the left the north-east side. 
Possibly it is a conceit suggested by the card of a mariner's compass ; the 
north point, with its Fleur-de-lis representing Crowdero's head ; and then 
the fiddle would be placed at the north-east, when played. 

6 The noose is usually placed under the left ear. 

7 Souse is the pig's ear, and chitterlings are the pig's guts : the former 



ca:nto II.] HUDIBHAS. 47 

For guts, some -write, ere they are sodden, 

Are fit for music, or for pudden ; 

From whence men borrow every kind 

Of minstrelsy, by string or wind. 1 

His grisly beard was long and thick, 125 

With which he strung his fiddle-stick ; 

For he to horse-tail scorn' d to owe 

For what on his own chin did grow. 

Chiron, the four-legg'd bard, 2 had both 

A beard and tail of his own growth ; 130 

And yet by authors 'tis averr'd, 

He made use only of his beard. 

In Staffordshire, where virtuous worth 

Does raise the minstrelsy, not birth : 3 

"Where bulls do choose the boldest king 4 135 

And ruler o'er the men of string ; 

As once in Persia, 'tis said, 

Kings were proclaim'd b' a horse that neigh' d ; 5 

alludes to Crowdero's ear, -which lay upon the fiddle ; the latter to the strings 
of the fiddle, which are made of catgut. 

1 This whimsical notion is borrowed from a chapter ' de peditu,' in the 
Facetice Facetiarum, afterwards amplified in Dean Swift's Benefit of F — g 
explained, where Dr Blow is quoted as asserting in his ' Fundaments ' of 
Music, that the first discovery of harmony was owing to persons of different 
sizes and sexes sounding different notes of music from their fundaments. 
An Essay equally whimsical, on the origin of wind-music, will be found in 
the Spectator, No. 361. An anonymous Essay on this subject is attributed 
to the Hon. C. J. Fox. 

2 Chiron the Centaur, who, besides being the most famous physician of 
his time, and teacher of iEsculapius, was an expert musician, and Apollo's 
governor. He now forms the Sagittarius of the Zodiac. 

3 The Minstrel's Charter and Ceremonies are given in Plott's Stafford- 
shire, p. 436. 

4 This alludes to the custom of bull-running in the manor of Tutbury in 
Staffordshire, where was a charter granted by John of Gaunt, and confirmed 
by Henry VI., appointing a king of the minstrels, who was to have a bull 
for his property, which should be turned out by the prior of Tutbury, if his 
minstrels, or any one of them, could cut off a piece of his skin before he ran 
into Derbyshire ; but if the bull got into that county sound and unhurt, the 
prior was to have his bull again. This custom, being productive of much 
mischief, was, at the request of the inhabitants and by order of the Duke of 
Devonshire, lord of the manor, discontinued about the year 1788. 

5 Darius, elected King of Persia, under the agreement of the seven princes, 
who met on horseback, that the crown should devolve on him whose horse 
neighed first. By the ingenious device of his groom, the horse of Darius 



48 HTTDIBBAS. [PART I. 

He, bravely vent'ring at a crown, 

By chance of war was beaten down, 140 

And wounded sore : his leg, then broke, 

Had got a deputy of oak ; 

For when a shin in fight is cropt, 

The knee with one of timber's propt, 

Esteem'd more honourable than the other, 145 

And takes place, tho' the younger brother. 1 

Next march' d brave Orsin, 2 famous for 
"Wise conduct, and success in war ; 
A skilful leader, stout, severe, 

Now marshal to the champion bear. 150 

With truncheon tipp'd with iron head, 
The warrior to the lists he led ; 
"With solemn march, and stately pace, 
But far more grave and solemn face ; 
Grave as the Emperor of Pegu, 3 155 

Or Spanish potentate, Don Diego. 4 
This leader was of knowledge great, 
Either for charge, or for retreat : 
Knew when t' engage his bear pell-mell, 
And when to bring him off as well. 5 160 

So lawyers, lest the bear defendant, 
And plaintiff dog, should make an end on't, 
Do stave and tail with writs of error, 6 
Beverse of judgment, and demurrer, 

was the first to neigh, which secured the throne for his master. See the 
story at length in Herodotus, lib. iii. ; and in Brand's Popular Antiquities 
(Bonn's Edit., vol. iii. p. 124). 

1 A person with a wooden leg generally puts that leg first in walking. 

2 Orsin is only a name for a bearward. See Ben Jonson's Masque of 
Augurs. The person intended is Joshua Gosling, who kept bears at Paris 
Garden, Southwark. 

3 See Purchas's Pilgrims, V. b. 5, c. 4, or Mandelso and Olearius's Travels. 

4 See Purchas's Pilgrims, also Lady's Travels into Spain (by the Countess 
D'Aunois) 2 vols. 12mo. London, 1722. 

6 In the original edition these lines were — 

He knew when to fall on pell-mell, 
To fall back and retreat as well: 

6 The comparison of a lawyer with a bearward is here kept up : the one 
parts his clients, and keeps them at bay by writ of error and demurrer, as 
the latter does the dogs and the bear, by interposing his staff or stave, and 



CANTO II.] HUDIBEAS. 49 

To let them breathe awhile, and then 165 

Cry whoop, and set them on again. 

As Romulus a wolf did rear, 

So he was dry-nursed by a bear, 1 

That fed him with the purchased prey 

Of many a fierce and bloody fray ; 170 

Bred up, where discipline most rare is, 

In military garden Paris : 2 

For soldiers heretofore did grow 

In gardens, just as weeds do now, 

Until some splay-foot politicians 175 

T' Apollo offer' d up petitions, 3 

For licensing a new invention 

They'd found out, of an antique engine 

To root out all the weeds, that grow 

In public gardens, at a blow, 180 

And leave th' herbs standing. Quoth Sir Sun, 4 

My friends, that is not to be done. 

Not done ? quoth Statesmen : Tes, an't please ye, 

"When 'tis once known you'll say 'tis easy. 

Why then let's know it, quoth Apollo. 185 

"We'll beat a drum, and they'll all follow. 

holding the dogs by the tails. The bitterness of the satire may be accounted 
for by the poet's having married a widow, whom he thought possessed of a 
great fortune ; but being placed on bad security, perhaps through the un- 
skilfulness or roguery of a lawyer, it was lost. In his MS. Common-place 
Book he says the lawyer never ends a suit, but prunes it, that it may grow 
the faster, and yield a greater increase of strife. 

1 That is, maintained by the profits derived by the exhibition of his bear. 
It probably alludes also, as Grey suggests, to Orson (in the story of Valen- 
tine and Orson), who was suckled by a bear. 

2 At Paris Garden, in Southwark, near the river-side, there was a circus, 
long noted for the entertainment of bear-baiting, which was forbidden in 
the time of the civil wars. The ' military garden ' refers to a society in- 
stituted by James I., for training soldiers, who used to practise at Paris 
Garden. 

3 The whole passage, here a little inverted, by the satirist's humour, is 
taken from Boccalini's Advertisement from Parnassus, where the gardeners 
entreat Apollo, who had invented drums and trumpets by which princes 
could destroy their wild and rebellious subjects, to teach them some such 
easy method of destroying weeds. 

4 Apollo, after the fashion of chivalry, is here designated " Sir Sun." 
The expression is used by Sir Philip Sydney in Pembroke's Arcadia. 

E 



50 HUDIBRAS. [PART I. 

A drum ! quoth Phcebus ; Troth, that's true, 

A pretty invention, quaint and new : 

But tho' of voice and instrument 

"We are th' undoubted president, 190 

"We such loud music do not profess ; 

The devil's master of that office, 

Where it must pass ; if 't be a drum, 

He'll sign it with Cler. Pari. Bom. Corn} 

To him apply yourselves, and he 195 

Will soon despatch you for his fee. 

They did so, but it proved so ill, 

They'ad better let 'em grow there still. 2 

But to resume, what we discoursing 
Were on before, that is, stout Orsin ; 200 

That which so oft by sundry writers, 
Has been applied t' almost all fighters, 
More justly may b' ascribed to this 
Than any other warrior, viz. 

None ever acted both parts bolder, 205 

Both of a chieftain and a soldier. 
He was of great descent, and high 
For splendour and antiquity, 
And from celestial origine, 

Derived himself in a right line. 210 

Not as the ancient heroes did, 
Who, that their base births might be hid, 3 
Knowing they were of doubtful gender, 
And that they came in at a windore, 4 
Made Jupiter himself, and others 215 

O' th' gods, gallants to their own mothers, 

1 During the civil wars, the Eump parliament granted patents for new 
inventions ; these, and all other orders and ordinances, were signed by their 
clerk, with this addition to his name — Clerk of the Parliament House of 
Commons. Apollo sends the petitioners to that assembly, which he tells 
them is directed and governed by the devil, who will sanction the grant with 
the usual signature. 

2 The expedient of arming the discontented and unprincipled multitude 
is adventurous, and often proves fatal to the state. 

3 See Ion's address to his mother Creusa, when she had told him that he 
was son of Apollo. Euripides (Bonn's Transl. vol. ii. p. 121); also Spec- 
tator, p. 630. 

* Wind-door is still the provincial term for "window." 



CANTO II.] HTTDIBBAS. 51 

To get on them a race of champions, 

Of which old Homer first made lampoons. 

Arctophylax, in northern sphere, 1 

Was his undoubted ancestor ; 220 

From whom his great forefathers came, 

And in all ages hore his name : 

Learned he was in med'c'nal lore, 

For by his side a pouch he wore, 

Replete with strange hermetic powder,' 2 225 

That wounds nine miles point-hlank would solder; 3 

By skilful chymist, with great cost, 

Extracted from a rotten post ; 4 

But of a heav'nlier influence 

Than that which mountehanks dispense ; 230 

Tho' by Promethean fire made, 5 

As they do quack that drive that trade. 

For as when slovens do amiss 

At others' doors, hy stool or piss, 

The learned write, a red-hot spit 235 

Being prudently applied to it, 

Will convey mischief from the dung 6 

TJnto the breech 7 that did the wrong ; 

So this did healing, and as sure 

As that did mischief, this would cure. 240 

Thus virtuous Orsin was endued 
"With learning, conduct, fortitude 
Incomparable ; and as the prince 
Of poets, Homer, sung long since, 

1 Butler makes the constellation Bootes — which lies in the rear of Ursa 
Major — the mythological ancestor of the bearward Orsin. 

2 Hermetic, i. e. chemical. The Hermetical philosophy was so called from 
Hermes Trismegistus. 

3 A banter on the famous sympathetic powder, which was to effect the 
cure of wounds at a distance, and was much in vogue in the reign of 
James the First. See Sir Kenelm Digby's "Discourse of the cure of 
wounds by the powder of sympathy." London, 1644. 

4 Useless powders in medicine are called powders of post. 

5 That is, heat of the sun. The story of Prometheus is very amusingly 
told by Dean Swift, in No. 14 of his ' Intelligencer.' 

6 Still ridiculing the sympathetic powder. See Sir K. Digby's treatise, 
where the poet's story of the spit is seriously told. 

7 Thus in the first edition ; altered in the later ones to " part." 



52 HUDIBBAS. [PAEX I. 

A skilful leech is better far, 245 

Than half a hundred men of war ; 1 

So he appear' d, and by his skill, 

No less than dint of sword, could kill. 

The gallant Bruin march' d nest him, 
With visage formidably grim, 250 

And rugged as a Saracen, 
Or Turk of Mahomet's own kin, 2 
Clad in a mantle cle la guerre 

'Of rough, impenetrable fur ; 255 

And in his nose, like Indian king, 
He wore, for ornament, a ring ; 
About his neck a threefold gorget, 
As rough as trebled leathern target ; 
Armed, as heralds cant, and langued, 
Or, as the vulgar say, sharp-fanged : 260 

For as the teeth in beasts of prey 
Are swords, with which they fight in fray, 
So swords, in men of war, are teeth, 
Which they do eat their victual with. 
He Avas by birth, some authors write, 265 

A Eussian, some a Muscovite, 
And 'mong the Cossacks 3 had been bred, 
Of whom we in diurnals read, 
That serve to fill up pages here, 

As with their bodies ditches there. 4 270 

Scrimansky was his cousin-german, 5 
With whom he served, and fed on vermin ; 

1 See Homer's Iliad, b. xi. line 514. Leech is the old Saxon term for 
physician. 

2 Sandys, in his Travels, observes, that the Turks are generally well com- 
plexioned, of good stature, except Mahomet's kindred, who are the most ill- 
favoured people upon earth, branded, perhaps, by God for the sin of their 
seducing ancestor. 

3 The Cossacks are a people living near Poland, on the borders of the 
Don, whence the term " Don Cossack." Grey derives that name from Cosa, 
the Polish for a goat, to which they are compared for their extraordinary 
nimbleness and wandering habits. 

4 The story of the Eussian soldiers marching into the ditch at the siege 
of Schweidnitz is well known. The Cossacks had, in Butler's time, re- 
cently put themselves under the protection of Eussia. 

5 Some favourite bear perhaps ; or a caricatured Eussian name. 



OiJfTO II.] HUDIBEAS. 53 

And, when tlaese fail'd, he'd suck his claws, 
And quarter himself upon his paws. 
And tho' his countrymen, the Huns, 275 

Did stew their meat between their bums 
And th' horses' backs o'er which they straddle, 1 
And every man ate up his saddle ; 
He was not half so nice as they, 

But ate it raw when't came in's way. 280 

He had traced countries far and near, 
More than Le Blanc the traveller ; 
Who writes, he 'spoused in India, 2 
• Of noble house, a lady gay, 
And got on her a race of worthies, 285 

As stout as any upon earth is. 
Bull many a fight for him between 
Talgol and Orsin oft had been, 
Each striving to deserve the crown 
Of a saved citizen ; 3 the one 290 

To guard his bear, the other fought 
To aid his dog ; both made more stout 
By sev'ral spurs of neighbourhood, 
Church-fellow-membership, and blood ; 
But Talgol, mortal foe to cows, 295 

Never got ought of him but blows ; 
Blows hard and heavy, such as he 
Had lent, repaid with usury. 

Yet Talgol 4 was of courage stout, 
And vanquish'd oft'ner than he fought ; 300 

Inured to labour, sweat, and toil, 
And like a champion, shone with oil. 5 

1 This fact is related by Ammianus Marcellinns. With such fare did 
Azim Khan entertain Jenkinson, and other Englishmen, in their Travels to 
the Caspian Sea from the river Volga. See Busbequius' Letters, Ep. iv. 

2 Le Blanc tells the story of Aganda, a king's daughter, who married a bear. 

3 He, who saved the life of a Roman citizen, was entitled to a civic crown ; 
and so, says our author, were Talgol and Orsin, who fought hard to save the 
lives of their dogs and bears. 

4 Talgol was, we are told by Sir Roger L'Estrange, a butcher in New- 
gate Market, who afterwards obtained a captain's commission for his re- 
bellious bravery at Naseby. 

5 The greasiness of a butcher compared with that of the Greek and Ro- 
man wrestlers, who anointed themselves with oil to make their joints supple. 



54; HTJDIBRAS. [PAET I. 

Eight many a widow his keen blade, 

And many fatherless, had made. 

He many a boar and huge dun-cow 305 

Did, like another Gruy, o'erthrow ; ' 

But Gruy, with him in fight compared, 

Had like the boar or dun-cow fared. 

"With greater troops of sheep h' had fought 

Than Ajax, or bold Don Quixote ; 2 310 

And many a serpent of fell kind, 

With wings before, and stings behind, 3 

Subdued'; as poets say, long agone, 

Bold Sir George St Greorge did the dragon. 4 

JNbr engine, nor device polemic, 315 

Disease, nor doctor epidemic, 5 

Tho' stored with deletery med'cines, 

"Which whosoever took is dead since, 

E'er sent so vast a colony 

To both the under worlds as he. 6 320 



1 Guy, Earl of "Warwick, one of whose valiant exploits was overcoming 
the dun-cow at Dunsmore-heath, in "Warwickshire. 

8 Ajax, when mad with rage for having failed to obtain the armour of 
Achilles, attacked and slew a flock of sheep, mistaking them for the Grecian 
princes who had decided against him. In like manner Don Quixote en- 
countered a flock of sheep, and imagined they were the giant Alifanfarf n 
of Taprobana. 

3 Meaning the flies, wasps, and hornets, which prey upon the butchers' 
meat, and were killed by the valiant Talgol. 

4 Sir George, because tradition makes him a soldier as well as a saint. 
All heroes in romance have the appellation of Sir, as Sir Belianis of Greece, 
Sir Palmerin, &c. But there was a real Sir George St George, who in 
February, 1643, was made commissioner for the government of Connaught ; 
and it is not improbable that this coincidence of names might strike the 
playful imagination of Mr Butler. It is whimsical too, that General George 
Monk (afterwards Sir George), in a collection of loyal songs, is said to 
have slain a most cruel dragon, meaning the Bump parliament. Or per- 
haps the poet might mean to ridicule the presbyterians, who refused even 
to call the apostles Peter and Paul saints, but in mockery called them Sir 
Peter, Sir Paul, &c. 

5 There is humour in joining the epithet epidemic to the doctor as well 
as the disease, intimating that there is no condition of the air more danger- 
ous than the vicinity of a quack. 

6 Virgil, in his sixth iEneid, describes both the Elysian Fields and Tar- 
tarus as below, and not far asunder. 



CA3T0 II.] HTTDIBEAS. 55 

For he was of that noble trade 

That derai-gods and heroes made, 1 

Slaughter, and knocking on the head, 

The trade to which they all were bred ; 

And is, like others, glorious when 325 

'Tis great and large, but base, if mean : 2 

The former rides in triumph for it, 

The latter in a two-wheel'd chariot, 

For daring to profane a thing 

So sacred, with vile bungle-ing. 3- ) 330 

West these the brave Magnano^came, 
Magnano, great in martial fame ; 
Yet, when with Orsin he waged fight, 
'Tis sung he got but little by't : 
Yet he was fierce as forest boar, 335 

Whose spoils upon his back he wore, 4 
As thick as Ajax' seven-fold shield, 
Which o'er his brazen arms he held ; 
But brass was feeble to resist 

The fury of his armed fist ; 340 

Nor could the hardest iron hold out 
Against his blows, but they would through't. 
In magic he was deeply read, 
As he that made the brazen head : 5 



1 Satirizing those that pride themselves on their military achievements. 
The general who massacres thousands is called great and glorious ; the as- 
sassin who kills a single man is hanged at Tyburn. 

2 Julius Caesar is said to have fought fifty battles, and to have killed of 
the Gauls alone eleven hundred ninety-two thousand men, and as many 
more in his civil wars. In the inscription which Pompey placed in the 
temple of Minerva, he professed that he had slain, or vanquished and taken, 
two millions one hundred and eighty-three thousand men. 

3 Simon "Wait, a tinker, as famous an Independent preacher as Burroughs, 
who with equal blasphemy would style Oliver Cromwell the archangel 
giving battle to the devil. 

4 Meaning his budget made of pig's skin. 

5 The device of the brazen head, which was to speak a prophecy at a 
certain time, had by some been imputed to Grosse-tete, Bishop of Lincoln, 
as appears from the poet Gower ; by others to Albertus Magnus. But the 
generality of writers, and our poet among the rest, have ascribed it to 
Roger Bacon, whose great knowledge caused him to be reputed a magician. 
Some, however, believe the story of the head to be nothing more than a 
moral fable. 



5.6 HUDIBRAS. [PART I. 

Profoundly skill'd in the black art, 345 

As English Merlin, for his heart ; l 

But far more skilful in the spheres, 

Than he was at the sieve and shears. 2 
. He could transform himself to colour, 

As like the devil as a collier ; 3 350 

As like as hypocrites in show 

Are to true saints, or crow to crow. 

Of warlike engines he was author, 

Devised for quick despatch of slaughter : 

The cannon, blunderbuss, and saker, 355 

He was th' inventor of, and maker : 

The trumpet and the kettle-drum 

Did both from his invention come. 

He was the first that e'er did teach 

To make, and how to stop, a breach. 360 

A lance he bore with iron pike, 

Th' one half would thrust, the other strike ; 

And when their forces he had join' d, 

He scorn'd to turn his parts behind. 

He Trulla loved, 5 Trulla, more bright 365 

. Than burnish'd armour of her knight ; 

A bold virago, stout, and tall, 

As Joan of France, or English Mall. 6 

1 William Lilly the astrologer, who adopted the title of Merlinus An- 
glicus in some of his publications. 

2 The literal sense would be, that he was skilful in the heavenly spheres ; 
that is, astrology ; but a sphere is anything round, and the tinker's skill lay 
in mending pots and kettles, which are commonly of that shape. There was 
a kind of divination practised by means of a sieve, which was put upon the 
point of a pair of shears, and expected to turn round when the person or 
thing inquired after was named. This silly method of applying for inform- 
ation is mentioned by Theocritus, as Coscinomancy. (See Bonn's Transl. 
p. 19.) 

3 Alluding to a common proverb, " Like will to like, as the devil said to 
the collier." Handbook of Proverbs, p. 111. 

4 Tinkers are said to mend one hole, and make two. 

5 Trull is a low profligate woman, that follows the camp, or takes up 
with a strolling tinker. Trulla signifies the same in Italian. The person 
here alluded to was a daughter of James Spencer, debauched by Magnano 
the tinker. 

6 Joan of Arc, celebrated as the Maid of Orleans. English Moll was 
famous about the year 1670. Her real name was Mary Carlton ; but 
she was more commonly known as Kentish Moll, or the German princess. 



CANTO TI.] HrDIBEAS. 57 

Through perils both of wind and limb, 

Through thick and thin she follow'd him 370 

In every adventure h' undertook ; 

And never him, or it forsook. 

At breach of -wall, or hedge surprise, 

She shared i' th' hazard, and the prize : 

At beating quarters up, or forage, 375 

Behaved herself with matchless courage ; 

And laid about in fight more busily 

Than th' Amazonian Dame Penthesile. 1 

And tho' some critics here cry Shame, 

And say our authors are to blame, 380 

That ; spite of all philosophers, 

"Who hold no females stout but bears, 

And heretofore did so abhor 

That women should pretend to war, 

They would not suffer the stout'st dame 385 

To swear by Hercules his name ; 2 

Make feeble ladies, in their works, 

To fight like termagants and Turks ; 3 

She was transported to Jamaica in 1671 ; and being soon after discovered 
at large, was hanged at Tyburn, January 22, 1672-3. So far Dr Grey. Bp 
Percy thinks it more probable that Butler alluded to the valorous Mary 
Ambree, celebrated in a ballad, contained in his 'Reliques,' 2nd ser. book ii. 
But it is more likely than either, that he meant Moll Cutpurse (Mary Frith), 
to whom Shakspeare, Twelfth Night, Act ii. s. 3, alludes. See a long note 
on the subject in Johnson and Steevens' Shakspeare, edited by Isaac Reed, 
1803, vol. v. pages 2-54 — 56, where Dr Grey's notion is expressly corrected. 
The life of Moll Cutpurse was printed in 1662, with a portrait of her, 
copied in Caulfield's " Remarkable Persons." 

1 Queen of the Amazons, killed by Achilles. In the first editions it is 
printed Pen-thesile. See her story in any Classical Dictionary. 

2 Men and women, among the Romans, did not use the same oath, or 
swear by the same deity. According to Macrobius, the men did not swear 
by Castor, nor the women by Hercules ; but Edepol, or swearing by Pollux, 
was common to both. 

3 The word termagant now signifies a noisy and troublesome female. In 
Chaucer's rhyme of Sire Thopas, it appears to be the name of a deity. And 
Hamlet says (Act iii. sc. 2), "I would have such a fellow whipp'd for 
o'erdoing Termagant, it out-herods Herod." Mr Tyrwhitt states that this 
Saracen deity is called Tervagan, in an old MS. romance in the Bodleian 
Library. Bishop Warburton observes, that this passage is a fine satire on 
the Italian epic poets, Ariosto, Tasso, and others ; who have introduced 
their female warriors, and are followed in this absurdity by Spenser and 
Davenant. 



58 HUDIBEAS. [PAET I. 

To lay their native arms aside, 

Their modesty, and ride astride ; l 390 

To run a-tilt at men, and wield 
Their naked tools in open field ; 
As stout Armida, bold Thalestris, 2 
And she that would have been the mistress 
Of G-ondibert, but he had grace, 395 

And rather took a country lass : 3 
They say 'tis false, without all sense 
But of pernicious consequence 
To government, which they suppose 
' Can never be upheld in prose ; 4 400 

Strip nature naked to the skin, 
You'll find about her no such thing. 
It may be so, yet what we tell 
Of Trulla, that's improbable, 

Shall be deposed by those have seen't, 405 

Or, what's as good, produced in print ; 5 
And if they will not take our word, 
"We'll prove it true upon record. 

The upright Cerdon next advanc't, 6 
Of all his race the valiant'st ; 410 

Cerdon the Great, renown' d in song, 
Like Herc'les, for repair of wrong : 
He raised the low, and fortified 
The weak against the strongest side J 

1 Camden says that Anne, wife of Bichard II., daughter of the Emperor 
Charles IV., taught the English -women the present mode of riding, about 
the year 1388 ; before which time they rode astride. And Gower, in a 
poem dated 1394, describing a company of ladies on horseback, says, "ever- 
lch one ride on side." 

2 Two formidable women-at-arms, in romances, that were cudgelled into 
love by their gallants. See Classical Dictionary. 

3 It was the humble Birtha, daughter of the sage Astragon, who sup- 
planted the princess Rhodalind in the affections of Gondibert. 

4 Butler loses no opportunity of rallying Sir "William Davenant, who, in 
his preface to Gondibert, endeavours to show that government could not 
be upheld either by statesmen, divines, lawyers, or soldiers, without the aid 
of poetry. 

5 The vulgar imagine that everything which they see in print must be true. 

6 A one-eyed cobbler, and great reformer : there is an equivoaue upon 
the word upright. 

7 Meaning that he supplied and pieced the heels, and strengthened a 
weak sole. 



CANTO II.] HUDIBEAS. 59 

111 has he read, that never hit 415 

On him in muses' deathless writ. 

He had a weapon keen and fierce, 1 

That thro' a hull-hide shield would pierce, 

And cut it in a thousand pieces, 

Tho' tougher than the Knight of Greece his, 2 420 

"With whom his black-thumb'd ancestor 3 

"Was comrade in the ten years' war : 

For when the restless Greeks sat down 

So many years before Troy town, 

And were reuown'd, as Homer writes, 425 

For well-soled boots no less than fights ; 4 

They owed that glory only to 

His ancestor, that made them so. 

Fast friend he was to Reformation, 

Untd 'twas worn quite out of fashion ; 430 

Next rectifier of wry law, 

And would make three to cure one flaw. 

Learned he was, and could take note, 

Transcribe, collect, translate, and quote : 

But preaching was his chiefest talent, 5 435 

Or argument, in which being valiant, 

He used to lay about, and stickle, 

Like ram or bull at conventicle : 

For disputants, like rams and bulls, 

Do fight with arms that spring from skulls. 440 

1 That is, a sharp knife, with which he cut leather. 

2 The shield of Ajax. See Description of it in Iliad, v. 423 (Pope). 

3 According to the old distich : 

The higher the plum-tree, the riper the plum ; 
The richer the cobbler, the blacker his thumb. 

4 " Well-greaved Achreans:" the "greave" (icvrifiig) was armour for 
the legs, which Butler ludicrously calls boots. In allusion, no doubt, to 
a curious " Dissertation upon Boots " (in the Phcenix Britannicus, p. 268,) 
written in express ridicule of Col. Hewson, and perhaps having in mind 
Alexander Ross, who says that Achilles was a shoemaker's boy in Greece, » 
and had he not pawned his boots to Ulysses, would not have been 
pierced in the heel by Paris. In further illustration, the Shakspearian reader 
will remember Hotspur's punning reply to Owen Glendower's brag, " I 
sent thee bootless home," Henry IV. p. 1, Act iii. sc. 1. 

5 The encouragement of preaching by persons of every degree amongst 
the laity was one of the principal charges brought against the dominant 
party under the Commonwealth, by their opponents. 



60 HTIDIBKAS. [PAET I. 

Last Colon came, bold man of war, 1 
Destined to blows by fatal star ; 
Eight expert in command of horse, 
But cruel, and without remorse. 

That which of Centaur long ago 445 

"Was said, and has been wrested to 
Some other knights, was true of this : 
He and his horse were of a piece. 
One spirit did inform them both, 
The self-same vigour, fury, wrath ; 450 

Yet he was much the rougher part, 
And always had the harder heart, 
Altho' his horse had been of those 
That fed on man's flesh, as fame goes. 2 
Strange food for horse ! and yet, alas ! 455 

It may be true, for flesh is grass. 3 
Sturdy he was, and no less able 
Than Hercules to cleanse a stable ; 4 
As great a drover, and as great 

A critic too, in hog or neat. 460 

He ripp'd the womb up of his mother, 
Dame Tellus, 5 'cause he wanted fother, 
And provender, wherewith to feed 
Hhnself and his less cruel steed. 
It was a question, whether he, 465 

Or's horse, were of a family 
More worshipful ; till antiquaries, 
After they'd almost pored out their eyes, 

1 Ned Perry, an ostler. 

2 The horses of Diomedes, king of Thrace, were said to have been fed 
with human flesh, and that he himself was ultimately eaten by them, his 
dead body having been thrown to them by Hercules. The moral, perhaps, 
may be, that Diomede was ruined by keeping his horses, as Actaeon was 
said to be devoured by his dogs, because he was ruined by keeping them. 

3 A banter on the following passage in Sir Thomas Browne's Eeligio 
Medici : " All flesh is grass, not only metaphorically, but literally : for all 
those creatures we behold are but the herbs of the field digested into flesh 
in them, or more remotely carnified in ourselves," &c. See "Works (Bohn's 
Edit. vol.ii. p. 317). 

4 Alluding to the fabulous story of Hercules, who cleansed the stables of 
Augeas, king of Elis, by turning the river Alpbeus through them. 

5 This means no more than his ploughing the ground. A happy ex- 
ample of the magniloquence which belongs to mock epics. 



CANTO II.] HUDIBEAS. 61 

Did very learnedly decide 

The business on the horse's side ; 470 

And proved not only horse, but cows, 

ISTay pigs, were of the elder house : 

For beasts, when man was but a piece 

Of earth himself, did th' earth possess. 

These worthies were the chief that led * 475 

The combatants, each in the head 
Of his command, with arms and rage 
Ready and longing to engage. 
The numerous rabble was drawn out 
Of several countries round about, 480 

From villages remote, and shires, 
Of east and western hemispheres. 
From foreign parishes and regions, 
Of different manners, speech, religions, 1 
Came men and mastiffs ; some to fight 485 

For fame and honour, some for sight. 
And now the field of death, the lists, 
"Were enter'd by antagonists, 
And blood was ready to be broach'd, 
"When Hudibras in haste approach'd, 490 

"With Squire and weapons to attack 'em ; 
But first thus from his horse bespake 'em : 

"What rage, Citizens ! 2 what fury 
Doth you to these dire actions hurry ? 

1 In a thanksgiving sermon preached hefore Parliament, on the taking 
of Chester, Mr Case said that there were no less than 180 new sects then 
in London, who propagated the "damnahle doctrines of devils." And Mr 
Ford, in an assize sermon, stated " that in the little town of Peading, he 
was verily persuaded, if St Augustin' s and Epiphanius's Catalogues of Here- 
sies were lost, and all other modern and ancient records of the kind, yet it 
would he no hard matter to restore them, with considerahle enlargements, 
from that place ; that they have Anabaptism, Familism, Socinianism, Pe- 
lagianism, Panting, and what not? and that the devil was served in 
heterodox assemblies, as frequently as God in theirs. And that one of 
the most eminent church-livings in that country was possessed by a 
blasphemer, in whose house he believed some of them could testify that 
the devil was as visibly familiar as any one of the family." 

2 Butler certainly had the following lines of Lucan in view (Phars. 1 — 8) : 

" What rage, citizens ! has turned your swords 
Against yourselves, and Latian blood affords 
To envious foes ? " 



62 HTTDIBBAS. [PABT I. 

What oestrum, 1 what phrenetic mood 495 

Makes you thus lavish of your blood, 
While the proud Yies your trophies boast, ■ 

And unrevenged walks ghost ? 2 

What towns, what garrisons might you, 

With hazard of this blood, subdue, 500 

Which now ye're bent to throw away 

In vain, untriumphable fray ? 3 

Shall saints in civd bloodshed wallow 

Of saints, and let the Cause lie fallow ? 4 

The Cause, for which we fought and swore 505 

So boldly, shall we now give o'er ? 

Then because quarrels still are seen 

With oaths and swearings to begin, 

The Solemn League and Covenant 

Will seem a mere G-od-damme rant, 510 

And we that took it, and have fought, 

As lewd as drunkards that fall out. 

For as we make war for the king 

Against himself, 5 the self-same thing 



1 CEstrum is not only a Greek word for madness, but signifies also a gad- 
bee or borse-fiy, which torments cattle in summer, and makes them run 
about as if they were mad. 

2 Vies, or Devizes, in Wiltshire. The blank should be filled up with 
"Waller. This passage alludes to the defeat of Sir William Waller, by 
Wilmot, near that place, July 13, 1643. After the battle, Sir William was 
entirely neglected by his party. Clarendon calls it the battle of Roundway- 
down, and some in joke call it Runaway-down. 

3 The Romans never granted a triumph to the conqueror in a civil war. 

4 Walker, in his History of Independency, observes that all the cheating, 
ambitious, covetous persons of the land were united together under the 
title of 'the Godly,' 'the Saints,' and shared the fat of the land between 
them. He calls them " Saints who were canonized in the Devil's Calendar/' 
The support of the discipline, or ecclesiastical regimen by presbyters, was 
called the Cause. 

5 " To secure the king's person from danger," says Lord Clarendon, " was 
an expression they were not ashamed always to use, when there was no 
danger that threatened, but what themselves contrived and designed 
against him." They not only declared that they fought for the king, but 
that the raising and maintaining of soldiers for their own army woxild be 
an acceptable service to the king, parliament, and kingdom. They in- 
sisted on a difference between the king's political and his natural person ; 
and that his political must be, and was, with the Parliament, though his 
natural person was at war with them. 



CANTO II.] HrDIBEAS. 63 

Some will not stick to swear we do 515 

For God and for religion too. 

For if bear-baiting we allow, 

What good can Eeformation do ? 

The blood and treasure that's laid out 

Is thrown away, and goes for nought. 520 

Are these the fruits o' th' Protestation, 1 

The prototype of Eeformation, 

Which all the saints, and some, since martyrs, 2 

Wore in their hats like wedding-garters, 3 

When 'twas resolved by their house, 526 

Six members' quarrel to espouse ? 4 

Did they for this draw down the rabble, 

With zeal, and noises formidable ; 

And make all cries about the town 

Join throats to cry the bishops down ? 5 530 

Who having round begirt the palace, 

As once a month they do the gallows, 6 

As members gave the sign about, 

Set up their throats, with hideous shout. 

When tinkers bawl'd aloud, 7 to settle 535 

Church-discipline, for patching kettle. 8 

1 The Protestation was drawn up, and taken in the House of Commons, 
May 3, 1641 ; and immediately printed, and dispersed over the nation, the 
people carrying it about on the points of their spears. It was the first at- 
tempt at a national combination against the establishment, and was har- 
binger of the Covenant. 2 Those that were killed in the war. 

3 The protesters, when they came tumultuously to the parliament-house, 
Dec. 27, 1641, to demand justice on the Earl of Strafford, stuck printed 
copies of the Protestation in their hats, in token of their zeal. 

4 Charles I. ordered the following members, Lord Kimbolton, Pym, Hol- 
lis, Hampden, Haselrig, and Stroud, to be prosecuted, for plotting with the 
Scots, and stirring up sedition. The Commons voted against their arrest, 
upon which the king went to the house with his guards, to seize them ; 
but they, having intelligence of his design, made their escape. This was one 
of the first acts of open violence which preceded the civil wars. 

5 It is fresh in memory, says the author of Lex Talionis, how this city- 
sent forth its spurious scum in multitudes to cry down bishops, root and 
branch, with lying pamphlets, &c, — so far, that a dog with a black-and- 
white face was commonly called a bishop. 

6 The executions at Tyburn were generally once a month. 

7 All these Cries, so humorously substituted for the common street-cries 
of the times, represent the popular demands urged by the Puritans, before 
and under the Long Parliament. 8 For/that is, instead of. 



64 HTTDIBEAS. [PAET I. 

No sow-gelder did blow his horn 

To geld a cat, but cried Eeforna. 

The oyster-women lock'd their fish up, 

And trudged away to cry No Bishop : 540 

The mouse-trap men laid save-alls by, 

And 'gainst Ev'l Counsellors did cry. 

Botchers left old clothes in the lurch, 

And fell to turn and patch the church 

Some cried the Covenant, instead 545 

Of pudding-pies and ginger-bread : 

And some for brooms, old boots, and shoes, 

Bawl'd out to purge the Commons' House : 

Instead of kitchen-stuff, some cry 

A Gospel-preaching ministry : 550 

And some for old suits, coats, or cloak, 

No Surplices, nor Service-book. 

A strange harmonious inclination ! 

Of all degrees to Reformation : 

And is this all ? is this the end 555 

To which these carr'ings-on did tend ? 

Hath public faith, like a young heir, 

Por this tak'n up all sorts of ware, 

And run int' every tradesman's book, 

Till both turn'd bankrupts, and are broke ? 560 

Did saints for this bring in their plate, 2 

And crowd, as if they came too late ? 

For when they thought the Cause had need on't, 

Happy was he that could be rid on't. 

Did they coin piss-pots, bowls, and flagons, 565 

Int' officers of horse and dragoons ; 

And into pikes and musketeers 

Stamp beakers, cups, and porringers ? 

1 The Scots, in their large Declaration (163), begin their petition against 
the Common Prayer-book thus: — We, men, women, children, and serv- 
ants, having considered, &c. 

2 Zealous persons, on both sides, lent their plate, to raise money for re- 
cruiting the army. Even poor women brought a spoon, a thimble, or a 
bodkin. The king, or some one for the parliament, gave notes of hand to 
repay with interest. Several colleges at Oxford have notes to this day, for 
their plate delivered to the king : and many other notes of the sajjae nature 
are still in existence. Purchases were also made by both parties, on the 
" public faith," and large interest promised, but nothing ever paid. 



CANTO II.] HUDIBEAS. 65 

A thimble, bodkin, and a spoon, 

Did start up living men, as soon 570 

As in the furnace they were thrown, 

Just like the dragon's teeth b'ing sown. 1 

Then was the Cause all gold and plate, 

The brethren's off'rings consecrate, 

Like th' Hebrew calf, and down before it 575 

The saints fell prostrate, to adore it. 2 

So say the wicked — and will you 

Make that sarcasmous scandal true, 

By running after dogs and bears, 

Beasts more unclean than calves or steers ? 580 

Have pow'rful Preachers ply'd their tongues, 3 

And laid themselves out, and their lungs ; 

TJs'd all means, both direct and sinister, 

I' th' power of gospel-preaching minister ? 

Have they invented tones, to win 585 

The women, and make them draw in 

The men, as Indians with a female 

Tame elephant inveigle the male ? 

Have they told Prov'dence what it must do, 4 

Whom to avoid, and whom- to trust to ? 590 

Discover'd th' enemy's design, 

And which way best to countermine ? 

Prescrib'd what ways he hath to work, 

Or it will ne'er advance the Kirk ? 

1 Alluding to the fable of Cadmus; Ovid's Metamorphoses, iii. 106 
(Bohn's Translation, page 85). 

2 Exod. xxxii. 

3 Calamy, Case, and other Puritan preachers, exhorted their flocks, in 
the most moving terms and tones, to contribute their money towards the 
support of the parliament army, using such terms as " happy money that 
will purchase religion," "All ye that have contributed to the Parliament, 
come and take this sacrament to your comfort." 

4 Alluding to the profane familiarity which characterized the prayers of 
the most violent of the Presbyterian ministers and leaders. Grey says it 
was a common practice to inform God of the transactions of the times. And 
for those that were ' grown up in grace ' it was thought comely enough to 
take a great chair at the end of the table, and sit with cocked hats on their 
heads, to say : " God, we thought it not amiss to call upon Thee this evening 
and let Thee know how affairs stand ; we do somewhat long to hear from 
Thee, and if thou pleasest to give us such and such victories, we shall be 
good to Thee in something else when it lies in our way." 

F 



Told it the news o' th' last express, 1 595 

And after good or bad success 

Made prayers, not so like petitions, 

As overtures and propositions, 

Such as the army did present 

To their creator, th' parliament ; 600 

In which they freely will confess, 

They will not, cannot acquiesce, 2 

Unless the work be carry' d on 

In the same way they have begun, 

By setting Church and Common- weal 605 

All on a flame, bright as their zeal, 

On which the saints were all agog, 

And all this for a bear and dog ? 

The parliament drew up petitions 3 

To 'tself, and sent them, like commissions, 610 

To well-affected persons, down 

In every city and great town, 

With pow'r to levy horse and men, 

Only to bring them back agen ? 

For this did many, many a mile, 615 

Bide manfully in rank and file, 

1 The prayers of the Presbyterians, in those days, were very historical. 
Mr G. Swaithe, in his Prayers (pub. 1645), p. 12, says: "I hear the king- 
hath set up his standard at York, against the parliament and the city of 
London. Look thou upon them ; take their cause into thine own hand, 

, appear thou in the cause of thy saints ; the cause in hand.' ' 

" Tell them from the Holy Ghost," says Beech, " from the word of truth, 
that their destruction shall be terrible, it shall be timely, it shall be total. 

" Give thanks unto the Lord, for he is gracious, and his mercy endureth 
for ever. — -Who remembered us at Naseby, for his mercy endureth for ever. 
Who remembered us in Pembrokeshire, for his mercy, &c. 
"Who remembered us at Leicester, for his mercy, &c. 
Who remembered us at Taiinton, for his mercy, &c. 
Who remembered us at Bristol, for his mercy, &c." 

2 Alluding probably to their saucy expostulations with God from the 
pulpit, such as : " What dost thou mean, Lord, to fling us into a ditch and 
there to leave us ? " Again, " Put the Lord out of countenance ; put him, as 
you would say, to the blush, unless we be masters of our requests." 

3 It was customary for active members of parliament, having special ob- 
jects in view, to draw up petitions "very modest and reasonable," and send 
them into the country to be signed, then substituting something more suit- 
able to their purpose. The Hertfordshire petition, at the beginning of the 
war, took notice of things which had occurred in parliament only the night 
before its delivery, although it was signed by many thousands. 



CANTO II.] HUDIBEAS. 67 

With papers in their hats, that show'd 

As if they to the pillory rode ? 

Have all these courses, these efforts, 

Been try'd hy people of all sorts, 620 

Velis et remis, omnibus nervis, 1 

And all t' advance the Cause's service, 

And shall all now he thrown away 

In petulant intestine fray ? 

Shall we, that in the Cov'nant swore, 625 

Each man of us to run hefore 

Another 2 still in Reformation, 

Give dogs and hears a dispensation ? 

How will dissenting brethren relish it ? 

What will Malignants 3 say ? videlicet, 630 

That each man swore to do his best, 

To damn and perjure all the rest ; 

And hid the devil take the hin'most, 

"Which at this race is like to win most. 

They'll say, our hus'ness to reform 635 

The Church and State is hut a worm ; 

For to subscribe, unsight, unseen, 4 

T' an unknown Church's discipline, 

What is it else, but, before-hand, 

T' engage, and after understand ? 640 

For when we swore to carry on 

The present Reformation, 

According to the purest mode 

Of Churches best reform'd abroad, 5 

What did we else but make a vow 645 

To do, we knew not what, nor how ? 

1 That is, with all their might. See Bohn's Dictionary of Latin 
Quotations. 

2 This was a common phrase in those days, particularly with the zealous 
preachers, and is inserted in the Solemn League and Covenant. 

3 The name given to the king's party by the parliament. 

4 This refers to the haste with which the nation was made to " engage" 
in the Solemn League and Covenant, as the price of the assistance of'the 
Scotch army on the parliament's side. 

5 The Presbyterians pretended to desire such a reformation as had 
taken place in the neighbouring Churches ; the king offered to invite any 
Churches to a National Synod, and could not even obtain an answer to the 
proposal. 

F 2 



68 HTJDIBEAS. [PAST I. 

For no three of us will agree 

"Where or what Churches these should be; 

And is indeed the self-same case 

"With theirs that swore et ccdteras ; l 650 

Or the French league, in which men vow'd 

To fight to the last drop of blood. 2 

These slanders will be thrown upon 

The cause and work we carry on, 

If we permit men to run headlong 655 

T' exorbitances fit for Bedlam, 

Rather than gospel-walking times, 3 

"When slightest sins are greatest crimes. 

But we the matter so shall handle, 

As to remove that odious scandal. 660 

In name of king and parliament, 4 

I charge ye all, no more foment 

This feud, but keep the peace between 

Your brethren and your countrymen ; 

And to those places straight repair 665 

"Where your respective dwellings are : 

A sly stroke of the poet's at his own party. By the convocation which 
sat in the beginning of 1640 all the clergy were required to take an oath 
in this form : " Nor will I ever give my consent to alter the government of 
this Church by archbishops, bishops, deans, archdeacons, et ccstera." Dr 
Heylin, a member of the Convocation, endeavoured to make it appear that 
the et ccBtera was inserted by mistake. The absurdity of the oath is thus 
lashed by his brother satirist, Cleveland, p. 33 : 

" "Who swears et ccetera, swears more oaths at once 
Than Cerberus, out of his triple sconce." 

2 The 'Holy League' entered into for the-extirpation of Protestantism in 
France, 1576, was the original of the Scotch ' Solemn League and Covenant.' 
Nor did they differ much in their result. Both ended with the murder of 
two kings whom they had sworn to defend. This comparison has also been 
made, paragraph by paragraph, by Sir William Dugdale, in his ' Short View 
of the Troubles.' i 

3 A cant phrase of the time. 

4 The Presbyterians made a distinction between the king's person politic, 
and his person natural : when they fought against the latter, it was in de- 
fence of the former, always inseparable from the parliament. The commis- 
sion granted to the Earl of Essex was in the name of the king and parlia- 
ment. But when the Independents got the upper hand, the name of the 
king was omitted, and the commission of Sir Thomas Fairfax ran only in 
the name of the parliament. 



CA.XTO II.] HUBIBEAS. G9 

But to that purpose first surrender 

The fiddler, as the prime offender, 1 

Th' incendiary vile, that is chief 

Author, and engineer of mischief; 670 

That makes division between friends, 

For profane and malignant ends. 

He and that engine of vile noise, 

On which illegally he plays, 

Shall, dictum factum, both be brought 675 

To condign punishment, as th' ought. 

This must be done, and I would fain see 

Mortal so sturdy as to gainsay : 

For then I'll take another course, 

And soon reduce you all by force. 680 

This said, he clapt his hand on sword, 

To show he meant to keep his word. 

But Talgol, who had long supprest 
Inflamed wrath in glowing breast, 
Which now began to rage and burn as 685 

Implacably as flame in furnace, 
Thus answer' d him : Thou vermin wretched, 2 
As e'er in measled pork was hatched ; 
Thou tail of worship, that dost grow 
On rump of justice as of cow ; 690 

How dar'st thou with that sullen luggage 
O' th'self, old iron, 3 and other baggage, 
With which thy steed of bones and leather 
Has broke his wind in halting hither ; 

1 Alluding to the fable of the trumpeter, who was put to death for set- 
ting people together by the ears without fighting himself. It is meant to 
ridicule the clamours made by parliament against supposed evil counsel- 
lors ; by which Strafford, Laud, and others were sacrificed. 

2 The speech, though coarse, and becoming the mouth of a butcher (see 
Canto II. 1. 295), is an excellent satire upon the justices of the peace in those 
days, who were often shoemakers, tailors, or common livery servants. In- 
stead of making peace with their neighbours, they hunted impertinently for 
trifling offences, and severely punished them. " But it may be asked (says 
Grey) why Talgol was the first in answering the knight, when it seems more 
incumbent upon the bearward to make the defence ? Probably Talgol might 
then be a Cavalier ; for the character the poet has given him does not infer 
the contrary, and his answer carries strong indications to justify the con- 
jecture." 3 Meaning his sword and pistols. 



70 HUDIBEAS. [PART I. 

How durst th', I say, adventure thus 695 

T' oppose thy lumber against us ? 

Could thine impertinence find out 

No work t' employ itself about, 

"Where thou, secure from wooden blow, 

Thy busy vanity might show P 700 

"Was no dispute afoot between 

The caterwauling bretheren ? 

No subtle question rais'd among 

Those out-o'-their wits, and those i' th' wrong P 

No prize between those combatants 705 

O' th' times, the land and water saints ; 1 

"Where thou might' st stickle, without hazard 

Of outrage to thy hide and mazzard, 2 

And not, for want of bus'ness, come 

To us to be thus troublesome, 710 

To interrupt our better sort 

Of disputants, and spoil our sport ? 

"Was there no felony, no bawd, 

Cut-purse, 3 nor burglary abroad ? 

No stolen pig, nor plunder'd goose, 715 

To tie thee up from breaking loose ? 

No ale unlicens'd, broken hedge, 

Eor which thou statute might'st allege, 

To keep thee busy from foul evil, 

And shame due to thee from the devil ? 720 

Did no committee sit, 4 where he 

Might cut out journey-work for thee ; 

1 That is, the Presbyterians and Anabaptists. 

2 Face or head, see Wright's Provincial Diet., sub voce. Mazer is used 
for a head, seriously by Sylvester, and ludicrously in two old plays. From 
mazer comes mazzard, as from visor, vizard. 

3 Men formerly hung their purses, by a silken or leathern strap, to their 
belts, outside their garments. Hence the term cut-purse. 

4 In many counties certain persons appointed by the parliament to pro- 
mote their interest, had power to raise money for their use, and to punish 
their opponents by fine and imprisonment : these persons were called a 
Committee. Walker, in his History of Independency, *says that " to historia- 
iise at large the grievances of committees would require a volume as big as 
the Book of Martyrs, and that the people might as easily expect to find 
charity in hell, as justice in any committee." 



CANTO II.] HrDIBEAS. 71 

And set th' a task, with subornation, 

To stitch up sale and sequestration ; 

To cheat, with holiness and zeal, 725 

All parties and the common-weal ? 

Much better had it been for thee, 

H' had kept thee where th' art us'd to be ; 

Or sent th' on business any whither, 

So he had never brought thee hither. 730 

But if th' hast brain enough in skull 

To keep itself in lodging whole, 

And not provoke the rage of stones, 

And cudgels, to thy hide and bones ; 

Tremble and vanish while thou may'st, 735 

Which I'll not promise if thou stay'st. 

At this the Knight grew high in wroth, 
And Lifting hands and eyes up both, 
Three times he smote on stomach stout, 
From whence, at length, these words broke out : 740 

Was I for this entitled Sir, 
And girt with trusty sword and spur, 
For fame and honour to wage battle, 
Thus to be brav'd by foe to cattle ? 
Not all the pride that makes thee swell 745 

As big as thou dost blown-up veal ; 
Nor all thy tricks and sleights to cheat, 
And sell thy carrion for good meat ; 
Not all thy magic to repair 

Decay'd old age, in tough lean ware, 750 

Make nat'ral death appear thy work, 
And stop the gangrene in stale pork ; 
Not all the force that makes thee proud, 
Because by bullock ne'er withstood : 
Tho' arm'd with all thy cleavers, knives, 755 

And axes made to hew down lives, 
Shall save, or help thee to evade 
The hand of justice, or this blade, ■ 
Which I, her sword-bearer, do carry, 
For civil deed and military. 760 

Nor shall these words of venom base, 
Which thou hast from their native place, 



72 HUDIBEAS. [PABT I. 

Thy stomach, pump'd to fling on me, 

G-o unreveng'd, though I am free : l 

Thou down the same throat shalt devour 'em 765 

Like tainted beef, and pay dear for 'em. 

ISTor shall it e'er he said, that wight 

With gauntlet blue and bases white, 2 

And round blunt dudgeon by his side, 3 

So great a man at arms defy'd, 770 

"With words far bitterer than wormwood, 

That would in Job or Gfrizel stir mood. 4 

Dogs with their tongues their wounds do heal ; 

But men with hands, as thou shalt feel. 

This said, with hasty rage he snatch' d 775 

His gun-shot, that in holsters watch'd ; 
And bending cock, he levell'd full 
Against th' outside of Talgol's skull; 
Vowing that he should ne'er stir further, 
Nor henceforth cow or bullock murther. 780 

But Pallas came in shape of rust, 5 
And 'twixt the spring and hammer thrust 
Her gorgon-shield, which made the cock 
Stand stiff, as if 'twere turn'd t' a stock. 
Meanwhile fierce Talgol gath'ring might, 785 

With rugged truncheon charg'd the Knight ; 
But he with petronel 6 upheav'd, 
Instead of shield, the blow reeeiv'd. 7 

1 Free, that is, untouched by your accusations, as being free from what 
you charge me with. So Shahspeare, " We that have free souls," &c, 
Haml. III. 2. 

2 Meaning a butcher's blue sleeves and white apron. Gauntlets were 
gloves of plate-mail ; bases were mantles which hung from the middle to 
about the knees or lower, worn by knights on horseback. 

3 The steel on which a butcher whets his knife, called humorously a 
" dudgeon," or dagger. Some editions put truncheon. 

i The patience of Grisel is celebrated by Chaucer in the Clerke's Tale. 
The story is taken from Petrarch's "Epistola de historia Griselidis," and 
was the subject of a popular English Chap-book m 1619, often reprinted. 

5 A banter upon Homer, Virgil, and other epic poets, who have always 
a deity at hand to protect their heroes. See also lines 864-5. 

6 A horseman's pistol. 

7 These lines were changed to the following in 1674, and restored in 1704, 

And he his rusty pistol held, 

To take the blow on, like a shield. 



CANTO II.] HUDIBEAS. 73 

The gun recoil'd, as well it might, 

Not ois-ld to such a kind of fight, 790 

And shrunk from its great master's gripe, 

Knock' d down, and stunn'd, with mortal stripe : 

Then Hudibras, with furious haste, 

Drew out his sword ; yet not so fast, 

But Talgol first, with hardy thwack, 795 

Twice bruis'd his head, and twice his back ; 

But when his nut-brown 1 sword was out, 

Courageously he laid about, 

Imprinting many a wound upon 

His mortal foe, the truncheon. 800 

The trusty cudgel did oppose 

Itself against dead-doing blows, 

To guard its leader from fell bane, 

And then reveng'd itself again : 

And though the sword, some understood, 805 

In force had much the odds of wood, 

'Twas nothing so ; both sides were balanc't 

So equal, none knew which was valian'st. 

For wood with honour b'ing engag'd, 

Is so implacably enrag'd, 810 

Though iron hew and mangle sore, 

"Wood wounds and bruises honour more. 

And now both knights were out of breath, 

Tir'd in tbe hot pursuit of death ; 

Whilst all the rest, amaz'd, stood still, 815 

Expecting which should take, 2 or kill. 

This Hudibras observ'd, and fretting 

Conquest should be so long a-getting, 

He drew up all his force into 

One body, and that into one blow. 820 

But Talgol wisely avoided it 

By cunning sleight ; for had it hit 

The upper part of him, the blow 

Had slit, as sure as that below. 



1 " Rugged," in the first two editions ; changed perhaps because the term 
is just previously applied to a truncheon. The description of the combat is 
a ludicrous imitation of the conflicts recorded in the old romances. 

2 Take, that is, take prisoner, as in line 905. 



74 HUDIBEAS. [PAET I. 

Meanwhile th' incomparable Colon, 825 

To aid his friend, began to fall on ; 
Him Ealph encounter' d, and straight grew 
A dismal combat 'twixt them two : 
Th' one arm'd with metal, th' other wood ; 
This fit for bruise, and that for blood. 830 

"With many a stiff thwack, many a bang, 
Hard crab-tree and old iron rang ; 
While none that saw them could divine 
To which side conquest would incline : 
Until Magnano, who did envy 835 

That two should with so many men vie, 
By subtle stratagem of brain 
Perform'd what force could ne'er attain ; 
For he, by foul hap, having found 
Where thistles grew on barren ground, 840 

In haste he drew his weapon out, 
And having cropp'd them from the root, 
He clapp'd them under th' horse's tail, 1 
With prickles sharper than a nail. 
The angry beast did straight resent 845 

The wrong done to his fundament, 
Began to kick, and fling, and wince, 
As if h' had been beside his sense, 
Striving to disengage from thistle, 
That gall'd him sorely under his tail ; 850 

Instead of which he threw the pack 
Of Squire and baggage from his back, 
And blund'ring still with smarting rump, 
He gave the Knight's steed such a thump 
As made him reel. The Knight did stoop, 855 

And sat on further side aslope. 
This Talgol viewing, who had now, 
By flight, escap'd the fatal blow, 
He rally' d, and again fell to 't ; 

For catching foe by nearer foot, 860 

He lifted with such might and strength, 
As would have hurl'd him thrice his length, 

1 The same trick was played upon Don Quixote's Rosinante and Sancho's 
dapple. 



CANTO II.] HTDIBEAS. 75 

And dash'd his brains, if any, ont : 

But Mars, who still protects the stout, 

In pudding-time came to his aid, 865 

And under him the bear convey'd ; 

The bear, upon whose soft fur-gown 

The Knight, with all his weight, fell down. 

The friendly rug preserv'd the ground, 

And headlong Knight, from bruise or wound, 870 

Like feather-bed betwixt a wall, 1 

And heavy brunt of cannon ball. 

As Sancho on a blanket fell, 2 

And had no hurt ; ours far'd as well 

In body, though his mighty spirit, 875 

B'ing heavy, did not so well bear it. 

The bear was in a greater fright, 

Beat down and worsted by the Knight. 

He roar'd, and rag'd, and flung about, 

To shake off bondage from his snout. 880 

His wrath inflam'd boil'd o'er, and from 

His jaws of death he threw the foam ; 

Lury in stranger postures threw him, 

And more, than ever herald drew him. 3 

He tore the earth, which he had sav'd 885 

Prom squelch of Knight, and storm' d and rav'd ; 

And vex'd the more, because the harms 

He felt were 'gainst the Law of arms ; 

For men he always took to be 

His friends, and dogs the enemy, 890 

"Who never so much hurt had clone him 

As his own side did falling on him. 

It griev'd him to the guts, that they, 

Lor whom h' had fought so many a fray, 

And serv'd with loss of blood so long, 895 

Should offer such inhuman wrong ; 

Wrong of unsoldier-like condition ; 

Lor which he flung down his commission, 4 

1 Alluding to the protective measures recommended in old works on 
military fortification. 

2 Sancho's adventure at the inn, where he was toss'd in a hlanket. 

3 Alluding to the remarkahle and unnatural positions in which animals 
are conventionally portrayed in coats of arms. 

4 A ridicule on the petulant behaviour of the military men in the Civil 



76 HTJDIBRAS. [PABT I. 

And laid about him, till his nose 

From thrall of ring and cord broke loose. 900 

Soon as he felt himself enlarg'd, 

Through thickest of his foes he charg'd, 

And made way through th' amazed crew, 

Some he o'erran, and some o'erthrew, 

But took none ; for, by hasty flight, 905 

He strove t' avoid the conquering Knight, 

From whom he fled with as much haste 

And dread as he the rabble chased. 

In haste he fled, and so did they, 

Each and his fear l a several way. 910 

Crowdero only kept the field, 
Not stirring from the place he held, 
Though beaten down, and wounded sore, 
I' th' fiddle, and a leg that bore 
One side of him, not that of bone, 915 

But much its better, th' wooden one. 
He spying Hudibras lie strow'd 
Upon the ground, like log of wood, 
With fright of fall, supposed wound, 
And loss of urine, in a swound; 2 920 

In haste he snatch' d the wooden limb, 
That hurt i' th' ankle lay by him, 
And fitting it for sudden fight, 
Straight drew it up t' attack the Knight ; 
For getting up on stump and huckle, 3 925 

He with the foe began to buckle, 
Vowing to be reveng'd for breach 
Of crowd and shin upon the wretch, 
Sole author of all detriment 
He and his fiddle underwent. 930 

But Ralpho, who had now begun 
T' adventure resurrection 4 

"Wars, it being common for those of either party, at a distressful juncture, 
to come to the king or parliament with some unreasonable demands ; and 
if they were not complied with, to throw up their commissions, and go over 
to the opposite side : pretending, that they could not in honour serve any 
longer under such unsoldier-like indignities. 

1 That is, that which he feared. 

2 The twofold effect of the Knight's fear. 

3 Put here for " knee ; " the word means " hip." 

4 A ridicule on the Sectaries who were fond of using Scripture phrases. 



CANTO II.] HUDIBKAS. 77 

From heavy squelch, and had got up 

Upon his legs, with sprained crup, 

Looking about beheld the bard 935 

To charge the Knight entranc'd prepar'd, 1 

He snatch'd his whinyard up, that fled 

When he was falling oft' his steed, 

As rats do from a falling house, 

To hide itself from rage of blows ; 940 

And wing'd with speed and fury, flew 

To rescue Knight from black and. blue. 

Which ere he could achieve, his sconce 

The leg encounter'd twice and once ; 2 

And now 'twas rais'd, to smite agen, 945 

"When Kalpho thrust himself between ; 

He took the blow upon his arm, 

To shield the Knight from further harm ; 

And joining wrath with force, bestow'd 

0' th wooden member such a load, 950 

That down it fell, and with it bore 

CroAvdero, whom it propp'd before. 

To him the Squire right nimbly run, 

And setting conqu'ring foot upon 

His trunk, thus spoke : What desp'rate frenzy 955 

Made thee, thou whelp of sin, to fancy 

Thyself, and all that coward rabble, 

T' encounter us in battle able ? 

How durst th', I say, oppose thy curship 

'Gainst arms, authority, and worship, 960 

And Hudibras or me provoke, 

Though all thy limbs were heart of oak, 

And th' other half of thee as good 

To bear our 3 blows as that of wood ? 

Could not the whipping-post prevail, 965 

With all its rhet'ric, nor the jail, 

1 Var. Looking about, beheld pernicion 

Approaching Knight from fell musician. 

2 A ridicule of the poetical -way of expressing numbers. It occurs in Shak- 
epeare. Thus Justice Silence, in Henry IV. Act v. "Who, I ? I have be«n 
merry twice and once ere now." And the witch in Macbeth, Act v. "Twice 
and once the hedge pig whined." 

3 " Out," is the usual reading ; but the first edition has " our," which 
seems preferable. 



78 HTJDIBRAS. [PABT I. 

To keep from flaying scourge thy skin, 

And ankle free from iron gin ? 

Which now thou shalt — but first our care 

Must see how Hudibras doth fare. 970 

This said, he gently rais'd the Knight, 
And set him on his bum upright : 
To rouse him from lethargic dump, 1 
He tweak' d his nose, with gentle thump 2 
Knock'd on his breast, as if 't had been 975 

To raise the spirits lodg'd within. 
They, waken' d with the noise, did fly 
From inward room to window eye, 
And gently op'ning lid, the casement, 
Look'd out, but yet with some amazement. 980 

This gladded Ralpko much to see, 
"Who thus bespoke the Knight : quoth he, 
Tweaking his nose, You are, great Sir, 
A self-denying conqueror ; 3 

As high, victorious, and great, 985 

As e'er fought for the Churches yet, 
If you will give yourself but leave 
To make out what y' already have ; 
That 's victory. The foe, for dread 
Of your nine-worthiness, 4 is fled, 990 

All, save Crowdero, for whose sake 
You did th' espous'd Cause undertake ; 
And he lies pris'ner at your feet, 
To be dispos'd as you think meet, 

1 Compare this with the situation of Hector, who was stunned by a 
severe blow received from Aiax, and then comforted by Apollo. — Iliad xv. 
240. 

2 Shakspeare represents Adonis attempting after this fashion to rouse 
Venus from her swoon — 

" He wrings her nose, he strikes her on the cheek." 

See also Beaumont and Fletcher, " The Nice Valour," Act iii. 

3 Eidiculing the Self-denying Ordinance, by which the members of both 
Houses, who were in the army, pledged themselves to renounce either their 
civil or their military appointments. Grey thinks that Butler here meant to 
sneer at Sir Samuel Luke, who, notwithstanding the Self-denying Ordinance, 
continued for 20 days to hold office as governor of Newport Pagnel. 

4 Thrice worthy is a common appellation in romances. Thisis borrowed 
from the History of the "Nine Worthies." 



CANTO II.] HUDIBEAS. 79 

Either for life, or death, or sale, 1 995 

The gallows, or perpetual jail ; 

For one wink of your pow'rful eye 

Must sentence him to live or die. 

His fiddle is your proper purchase, 2 

"Won in the service of the Churches ; 1000 

And by your doom must be allow' d 

To be, or be no more, a Crowd : 

For tho' success did not confer 

Just title on the conqueror ; 3 

Tho' dispensations were not strong 1005 

Conclusions, whether right or wrong ; 

Altho' out-goings did not 4 confirm, 

And owning were but a mere term ; 5 

Yet as the wicked have no right 

To th' creature, 6 tho' usurp'd by might, 1010 

The property is in the saint, 

From whom th' injuriously detain't ; 

Of him they hold their luxuries, 

Their dogs, their horses, whores, and dice, 

Their riots, revels, masks, delights, 1015 

Pimps, buffoons, fiddlers, parasites ; 

All which the saints have title to, 

And ought t' enjoy, if th' had their due. 

What we take from them is no more 

Than what was ours by right before ; 1020 

For We are their true landlords still, 

And they our tenants but at will. 

At this the Knight began to rouse, 
And by degrees grow valorous : 

He star'd about, and seeing none 1025 

Of all his foes remain but one, 
He snatch' d his weapon that lay near him, 
And from the ground began to rear him, 

1 The phrases bantered here, were popular amongst the Puritans. 

2 That is, acquisition by conquest ; the original meaning of the -word. 

3 Success was pleaded by the Presbyterians as a proof of the justice of 
their cause. 4 So in the three first editions. But 1710 omits 'not.' 

5 Dispensations, out-goings, carryings-on, nothingness, ownings, &c, 
were cant words of the time. For others see Canto I. ver. 109. 

6 It was maintained by the Puritans of those days that all Dominion is 



80 HTJDIBEAS. [PAET T. 

Vowing to make Crowdero pay 

For all the rest that ran away. 1030 

But Balpho now, in colder blood, 

His fury mildly thus withstood : 

Great Sir, quoth he, your mighty spirit 

Is rais'd too high ; this slave does merit 

To he the hangman's bus'ness, sooner 1035 

Than from your hand to have the honour 

Of his destruction ; I that am 

A nothingness 1 in deed and name, 

Did scorn to hurt his forfeit carcase, 

Or ill entreat his fiddle or case : 1040 

"Will you, great Sir, that glory blot 

In cold blood, which you gain'd in hot ? 

Will you employ your conqu'ring sword 

To break a fiddle, and your word? 

For tho' I fought and overcame, 1045 

And quarter gave, 'twas in your name : 2 

For great commanders always own 

What's prosp'rous by the soldier done. 

To save, where you have pow'r to kill, 

Argues your pow'r above your will ; 1050 

And that your will and pow'r have less 

Than both might have of selfishness. 

This pow'r which, now alive, with dread 

He trembles at, if he were dead, 

Would no more keep the slave in awe, 1055 

Than if you were a knight of straw ; 

For death would then be his conqueror, 

Not you, and free him from that terror. 

If danger from his life accrue, 

Or honour from his death to you, 1060 

'Twere policy, and honour too, 

To do as you resolv'd to do : 

founded in grace, and therefore if a man wanted grace, and was not a saint- 
like or godly man, he had no right to any lands, goods, or chattels ; and 
that the Saints had a right to all, and might take it wherever they had 
power to do so. l One of the cant terms of the times. 

2 Obviously a satire upon the parliament, who made no scruple at infring- 
ing articles of capitulation granted by their generals, if they found them too 
advantageous to the enemy. 



CA>-TO II.] HUDIBEAS. 81 

But, Sir, 'twou'd wrong your valour much, 

To say it needs, or fears a crutch. 

Great conqu'rors greater glory gain 1065 

By foes in triumph led, than slain : 

The laurels that adorn their brows 

Are pull'd from living, not dead boughs, 

And living foes : the greatest fame' 

Of cripple slain can be but lame : 1070 

One half of him's already slain, 

The other is not worth your pain ; 

Th' honour can but on one side light, 

As worship did, when y' were dubb'd Knight. 

"Wherefore I think it better far 1075 

To keep him prisoner of war ; 

And let him fast in bonds abide, 

At court of justice to be try'd ; 

"Where, if h' appear so bold or crafty, 

There may be danger in his safety : l 1080 

If any member there dislike 

His face, or to his beard have pike ; 2 

Or if his death will save, or yield 

Bevenge or fright, it is reveal' d ; 3 

Tho' he has quarter, ne'ertheless 1085 

T' have pow'r to hang him when you please. 4 

This has been often done by some 

Of our great conqu'rors, you know whom ; 

1 The conduct of Cromwell in the case of Lord Capel will explain this 
line. After pronouncing high encomiums on him, and when every one ex- 
pected he would vote to save his life, he took the opposite course, because 
of his firm loyalty ! See Clarendon. 2 That is, pique. 

3 One of the most objectionable of all the cant religious phrases of the time, 
as it involved the pretence of supernatural instruction. In some cases, after 
the Rebels had taken a prisoner, upon the promise of quarter, they would say 
that it had since been revealed to such a one that he should die, whereupon 
they would hang him. Dr South observes of Harrison, the regicide, a butcher 
by profession and a preaching Colonel in the Parliament army, " That he was 
notable for having killed several after quarter given by others,using these words 
in doing it : ' Cursed be he who doeth the work of the Lord negligently.' " 

4 The arbitrary proceedings of the Long Parliament and the Commit- 
tees appointed by it, in respect of the lives and property of royalists, and of 
any who had enemies to call them royalists, are here referred to. A con- 
temporary MS. note in our copy of the first edition states that this line 
refers to Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle, who were executed " after 
quarter given them by General Fairfax." 

G 



82 HTTDIBRAS. [PAET I. 

And has by most of us been held 

Wise justice, and to some reveal'd : 1090 

For words and promises, that yoke 

The conqueror, are quickly broke ; 

like Samson's cuffs, tho' by his own 

Directions and advice put on. 

For if we should fight for the Cause 1095 

By rules of military laws, 

AJnd only do what they call just, 

The Cause would quickly fall to dust. 

This we among ourselves may speak ; 

But to the wicked or the weak 1100 

"We must be cautious to declare 

Perfection-truths, such as these are. 1 

This said, the high outrageous mettle 
Of Knight began to cool and settle. 
He lik'd the Squire's advice, and soon 1105 

Besolv'd to see the bus'ness done ; 
And therefore charg'd him first to bind 
Crowdero's hands on rump behind, 
And to its former place, and use, 
The wooden member to reduce ; 11 10 

But force it take an oath before, 
Ne'er to bear arms against him more. 2 

Balpho dispatch' d with speedy haste, 
And having ty'd Crowdero fast, 

He gave Sir Knight the end of cord, 1115 

To lead the captive of his sword ' 
In triumph, while the steeds he caught, 
And them to further service brought. 
The Squire, in state, rode "on before, 
And oh his nut-brown whinyard bore 1120 

The trophy-fiddle and the case, 
Leaning on shoulder 3 like a mace. 

1 Truths revealed only to the perfect, or the initiated in the higher mys- 
teries ; and here signifying esoteric doctrines in morals, such as -were avowed 
by many of the Parliamentary leaders and advisers. 

2 The poet in making the wooden leg take an oath not to serve again 
against his captor, ridicules those who obliged their prisoners to take such 
oaths. The prisoners taken at Brentford were so sworn by the Eoyalists, but 
Dr Downing and Mr Marshall absolved them from this oath, and they im- 
mediately served again in the parliament army. 

3 Var. Plac'd on his shoulder. 



CAS TO II.] HUDIBBAB. 83 

The Knight himself did after ride, 

Leading Crowdero by his side ; 

And tow'd him, if he lagg'd behind, 1125 

Like boat against the tide and wind. 

Thus grave and solemn they march on, 

Until quite thro' the town they'd gone : 

At further end of which there stands 

An ancient castle, that commands l 1130 

Th' adjacent parts ; in all the fabrick 

Tou shall not see one stone nor a brick, 

But all of wood, by pow'rful spell 

Of magic made impregnable : 

There 's neither iron bar nor gate, 1135 

Portcullis, chain, nor bolt, nor grate ; 

And yet men durance there abide, 

In dungeon scarce three inches wide ; 

With roof so low, that under it 

They never stand, but lie or sit ; 1140 

And yet so foul, that whoso is in, 

Is to the middle-leg in prison ; 

In circle magical confin'd, 

"With walls of subtle air and wind, 

Which none are able to break thorough, 1145 

Until they're freed by head of borough. 

Thither arriv'd, the advent'rous Knight 

And bold Squire from their steeds alight 

At th' outward wall, near which there stands 

A Bastile, built t' imprison hands ; 2 1150 

By strange enchantment made to fetter 

The lesser parts, and free the greater : 

For tho' the body may creep through, 

The hands in grate are fast enow : 

And when a circle 'bout the wrist 1155 

Is made by beadle exorcist, 

The body feels the spur and switch, 

As if 't were ridden post by witch, 

1 The Stocks are here pictured as an enchanted castle, with infinite wit 
and humour, and in the true spirit of burlesque poetry. 

2 A description of the whipping-post ; and a satire upon the great State - 
prison at Paris, of which there were many tales abroad, strange to English 
ears even in Star-chamber times. 

g2 



34 . HUDIBRAS. 

At twenty miles an hour pace, 

And yet ne'er stirs out of the place. 

On top of this there is a spire, 

On which Sir Knight first bids the Squire 

The fiddle, and its spoils, 1 the case, 

In manner of a trophy, place. 

That done, they ope the trap-door gate, 

And let Crowdero down thereat. 

Crowdero making doleful face, 

Like hermit poor in pensive place, 2 

To dungeon they the wretch commit, 

And the survivor of his feet ; 

But th' other, that had broke the peace, 

And head of knighthood, they release, 

Tho' a delinquent false and forged, 

Yet h'ing a stranger he 's enlarged ; 3 

"While his comrade, that did no hurt, 

Is clapp'd up fast in prison for't. 

So justice, while she Avinks at crimes, 

Stumbles on innocence sometimes. 



[PABT I. 



1165 



1 That is, its hide, skin, or covering ; as in " spoils of the chase." 

2 This is the first line of a love-song, in great vogue ahout the year 
1650. It is given entire in Walton's Angler (Bonn's edit. p. 159). 

3 This alludes to the case of Sir Bernard Gascoign, who was condemned 
at Colchester with Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle, but respited from 
execution on account of his being a foreigner, and a person of some interest 
in his own country (Italy). See Clarendon's Rebellion. 







PART I. CANTO III. 










ARGUMENTS 

The scatter'd rout return and rally, 
Surround the place ; the Knight does sally, 
And is made pris'ner : then they seize 
Th' enchanted fort by storm, release 
Crowdero, and put the Squire in's place : 
I should have first said Hudibras. 



1 The Author follows the example of Spenser, and the Italian poets, in 
the division of his work into parts and cantos. Spenser contents himself 
with a quatrain at the head of each canto ; Butler more fully informs his 
readers what they are to expect, by an argument in the same style with the 
poem ; and shows that he knew how to enliven so dry a thing as a sum- 
mary. 




PAKT I. CANTO III. 



T me ! what perils do environ 
The man that meddles with cold iron! 1 
What plaguy mischiefs and mishaps 
Do dog him still with afterclaps ! 
For tho' dame Fortune seem to smile, 5 

And leer upon him for a while, 

She'll after show him, in the nick 

Of all his glories, a dog-trick. 

This any man may sing or say 

r th' ditty call'd, "What if a day ? 2 10 

For Hudibras, who thought he'd won 

The field as certain as a gun, 3 

And having routed the whole troop, 

"With victory was cock-a-hoop ; 4 

1 A parody on Spenser's verses : 

Ay me, how many perils do enfold 

The virtuous man to make him daily fall. 

Fairy Queen : Book i. canto 8. 

These two lines are become a kind of proverbial expression, partly owing 
to the moral reflection, and partly to the jingle of the double rhyme : they 
are applied sometimes to a man mortally wounded with a sword, and some- 
times to a lady who pricks her finger with a needle. It was humorously 
applied by the Cambridge wits to Jeffreys, on the publication of Lord By- 
ron's "English Bards and Scotch Beviewers." Butler, in his MS. Com- 
mon Place-book, on this passage, observes : " Cold iron in Greenland burns 
as grievously as hot." Some editions read " Ah me." 

2 An old ballad, which begins : 

What if a day, or a month, or a year 

Crown thy delights, 
With a thousand wish't contentings ! 
Cannot the chance of a night or an hour, 

Cross thy delights, 
With as many sad tormentings ? 

3 The first edition reads : Suer as a gun. 

4 That is, crowing or rejoicing. Handbook of Proverbs, p. 154. 



CA^TO III. J HUDIBRAS. S7 

Thinking lie 'd done enough to purchase 15 

Thanksgiving-day among the churches, 1 

TVherein his metal and crave worth 

Might be explain' d by holder-forth, 

And register' d by fame eternal, 

In deathless pages of diurnal ; 2 20 

Found in few minutes, to his cost, 

He did but count without his host ; 3 

And that a turn-stile is more certain 

Than, in events of war, Dame Fortune. 

For now the late faint-hearted rout, 25 

O'erthrown and scatter'd round about, 
Chas'd by the horror of their fear, 
From bloody fray of Knight and Bear, 
All but the dogs, who, in pursuit 
Of the Knight's victory, stood to 't, 30 

And most ignobly sought 4 to get 
The honour of his blood and sweat, 5 
Seeing the coast was free and clear 
O' the conquer' d and the conqueror, 
Took heart of grace, 6 and fac'd about, 35 

As if they meant to stand it out : 
For now the half defeated bear, 7 
Attack'd by th' enemy i' th' rear, 
Finding their number grew too great 
For him to make a safe retreat, 40 

Like a bold chieftain fac'd about ; 
But wisely doubting to hold out, 
Gave way to fortune, and with haste 
Fac'd the proud foe, and fled, and fac'd, 

1 The parliament was accustomed to order a day of public Thanksgiving, 
on occasion of every advantage gained over the Royalists, however trifling. 
And at these seasons the valour and worthiness of the leader, who had gained 
the victory, were lauded and enlarged upon. 

2 The gazettes or newspapers, on the side of the parliament, were pub- 
lished daily, and called Diurnals. 

3 Handbook of Proverbs, p. 542. 4 Var. Fought. 

5 An allusion to the complaint of the Presbyterian commanders 
against the Independents, when the Self-denying Ordinance had excluded 
them. 

6 Altered in subsequent editions to " took heart again." 

7 The first editions read : For by this time the routed bear. 



88 HUDIBRAS. [PAET I. 

Retiring still, until lie found 45 

He 'd got th' advantage of the ground ; 

And then as valiantly made head 

To check the foe, and forthwith fled, 

Leaving no art untry'd, nor trick 

Of warrior stout and politick ; 50 

Until, in spite of hot pursuit, 

He gain'd a pass, to hold dispute 

On better terms, and stop the course 

Of the proud foe. "With all his force 

He bravely charg'd, and for a while 55 

Forc'd their whole body to recoil ; 

But still their numbers so increas'd, 

He found himself at length oppress'd, 

And all evasions so uncertain, 

To save himself for better fortune, 60 

That he resolv'd, rather than yield, 

To die with honour in the field, 

And sell his hide and carcase at 

A price as high and desperate 

As e'er he could. This resolution 65 

He forthwith put in execution, 

And bravely threw himself among 

Th' enemy i' th' greatest throng ; 

But what could single valour do 

Against so numerous a foe ? 70 

Tet much he did, indeed too much 

To be belie v'd, where th' odds were such ; 

But one against a multitude 

Is more than mortal can make good : 

For while one party he oppos'd, 75 

His rear was suddenly enclos'd, 

And no room left him for retreat, 

Or fight against a foe so great. 

For now the mastiffs, charging home, 

To blows and handy-gripes were come ; 80 

While manfully himself he bore, 

And, setting his right foot before, 

He rais'd himself, to show how tall 

His person was, above them all. 



CA]S T TO III.] HUDIBEAS. 89 

This equal shame and envy stirr'd 85 

In th' enemy, that one should heard 
So many warriors, and so stout, 
As he had done, and stav'd it out, 
Disdaining to lay down his arms, 
And yield on honourable terms. 90 

Enraged thus, some in the rear 
Attack' d him, and some ev'ry where, 
Till down he fell ; yet falling fought, 
And, being down, still laid about ; 
As Widdrington, in doleful dumps, 95 

Is said to fight upon his stumps. 1 
But all, alas ! had been in vain, 
And he inevitably slain, 
If Trulla and Cerdon, in the nick, 
To rescue him had not been quick : 100 

For Trulla, who was light of foot, 
As shafts which long-field Parthians shoot ; 2 
But not so light as to be borne 
Upon the ears of standing corn, 3 
Or trip it o'er the water quicker 105 

Than witches, when their staves they liquor, 4 
As some report, was got among 
The foremost of the martial throng ; 
Where, pitying the vanquish' d bear, 
She call'd to Cerdon, who stood near, no 

Viewing the bloody fight ; to whom, 
Shall we, quoth she, stand still hum-drum, 
And see stout Bruin, all alone, 
By numbers basely overthrown ? 

1 So in the famous song of Chevy Chase : 

For "Witherington needs must I vail. 

As one in doleful dumps, 
For when his legs were smitten off 

He fought upon his stumps. 

2 Long-field is a term of archery, and a long-fielder is still a hero at a 
cricket match. 

3 A satirical stroke at the character of Camilla, whose speed is hyper- 
bolically described by Virgil, at the end of the seventh book of the iEneid. 

4 "Witches are said to ride upon broomsticks, and to liquor, or greaso 
them, that they may go faster. See Lucan, vi. 572. 



90 HTJDIBRAS. |_PAET I. 

Such feats already he 'as aehiev'd, 115 

In story not to be believ'd, 
"And 'twould to us be shame enough, 
Not to attempt to fetch him off 

I would, quoth he, venture a limb 
To second thee, and rescue him ; 120 

But then we must about it straight, 
Or else our aid will come too late ; 
Quarter he scorns, he is so stout, 
And therefore cannot long hold out. 
This said, they wav'd their weapons round 125 

About their heads, to clear the ground ; 
And joining forces, laid about 
So fiercely, that th' amazed rout 
Turn'd tail again, and straight begun, 
As if the devil drove, to run. 130 

Meanwhile th' approach'd th' place where Bruin 
"Was now engag'd to mortal ruin : 
The conqu'ring foe they soon assail' d ; 
First Trulla stav'd, and Cerdon tail'd, 1 
Until the mastiffs loos'd their hold : 135 

And yet, alas ! do what they could, 
The worsted bear came off with store 
Of bloody wounds, but all before : 2 
For as Achilles, dipt in pond, 

"Was anabaptiz'd free from wound, 140 

Made proof against dead-doing steel 
All over, but the pagan heel ; 3 

1 Trulla interposed her staff between the dogs and the bear, in order to part 
them ; and Cerdon drew the dogs away by their tails. Staving and tailing 
are technical terms used in the bear-garden, but are sometimes applied me- 
taphorically to higher pursuits, as law, divinity, &c. 

2 That is, honourable wounds. The reader familiar with Shakspeare will 
remember Old Siward, in the last scene of Macbeth : 

Siw. Had he his hurts before ? 

Ross. Aye, in the front. 

Why then God's soldier is he ! 
Had I as many sons as I have hairs, 
I would not wish them to a fairer death. 
And so his knell is knoll' d. 
5 The Anabaptists insisted upon the necessity of immersion in baptism ; 
so Butler uses the word " anabaptized " as equivalent to "dipt" : but aa 
the vulnerable heel was not dipt, he calls it "pagan." 



CANTO III.J HTJDIBEAP. 91 

So did our champion's arms defend 

All of him hut the other end, 

His head and ears, which in the martial 145 

Encounter lost a leathern parcel ; 

For as an Austrian archduke once 

Had one ear, which in ducatoons 

Is half the coin, in tattle par'd 

Close to his head, 1 so Bruin far'd; 1.3 J 

But tugg'd and pull'd.on th' other side,' 

Like scriv'ner newly crucify' d ; 2 

Or like the late-corrected leathern 

Ears of the circumcised brethren. 3 

But gentle Trulla into th' ring 155 

He wore in's nose convey'd a string, 

With which she march' d before, and led 

The warrior to a grassy bed, 

As authors write, in a cool shade, 4 

Which eglantine and roses made ; 1 60 

Close by a softly murm'ring stream, 

"Where lovers use to loll and dream : 

There leaving him to his repose, 

Secured from pursuit of foes, 

1 Albert, archduke of Austria, brother to the emperor Rodolpk the Second, 
had one of his ears grazed by a spear, when he had taken off his helmet, and 
was endeavouring to rally his soldiers, in an engagement with Prince Mau- 
rice of Nassau, ann. 1598. A ducatoon is half a ducat. 

3 In those days lawyers or scriveners, guilty of dishonest practices, were 
sentenced to lose their ears. 

3 Pryune, Bastwick, and Burton, who were placed in the pillory, and had 
their ears cut off, by order of the Star-chamber, in 1637, for writing sedi- 
tious libels. They were banished into remote parts of the kingdom ; but 
recalled by the parliament in 1640. At their return the populace received 
them with enthusiasm. They were met, near London, by ten thousand per- 
sons, carrying boughs and flowers ; and the members of the Star-chamber, 
concerned in punishing them, were fined £4000 for each. 

4 The passage which commences with this line is an admirable satire on 
the romance writers of those days ; who imitated the well-known passages 
in Homer and Virgil, which represented the care taken by the deities of 
their favourites, after combats. "In this passage (says Ramsay) the burlesque 
is maintained with great skill, the imagery is descriptive, and the verse 
smooth ; showing that the author might, had he chosen, have produced 
something in a very different strain to < Hudibras ' ; though of less excel- 
lence. He perhaps knew the true bent of his genius, and probably felt a 
contempt for the easy smoothness and pretty feebleness of his contempo- 
raries, of whom Waller and Denham were the two most striking examples." 



92 HFDIBBAS. [PAST I. 

And wanting nothing but a song, 1 165 

And a well-tuned theorbo 2 hung 

Upon a bough, to ease the pain 

His tugg'd ears suffer'd, with a strain. 3 

They both drew up, to march in quest 

Of his great leader, and the rest. 170 

For Orsin, who was more renown' d 
For stout maintaining of his ground 
In standing fights, than for pursuit, 
As being not so quick of foot, 

"Was not long able to keep pace 175 

"With others that pursu'd the chase, 
But found himself left far behind, 
Both out of heart and out of wind ; 
Griev'd to behold his bear pursu'd 
So basely by a multitude, 180 

And like to fall, not by the 
But numbers, of his coward foes. 
He rag'd, and kept as heavy a coil as 
Stout Hercules for loss of Hylas ; 4 
Forcing the vallies to repeat 185 

The accents of his sad regret : 
He beat his breast, and tore his hair, 
For loss of his dear crony bear ; 
That Echo, from the hollow ground, 5 
His doleful waitings did resound 190 

1 The ancients believed that Music had the power of curing hemorrhages, 
gout, sciatica, and all sorts of sprains, when once the patient found himself 
capable of listening to it. Thus Homer, Odyssey, book xix. line 534 
of Pope. 

2 A large lute for playing a thorough bass, used by the Italians. 

3 In Grey's edition it is thus pointed : 

His tugg'd ears suffer'd ; with a strain 

They both drew up — 
But the poet probably meant a well-tuned theorbo, to ease the pain with 
a strain, that is, with music and a song. 

4 Hercules, when he bewails the loss of Hylas. See Val. Flac. Argon, 
iii. 593, and Theocritus, Idyl. xiii. 58. 

5 A fine satire (says Grey) on that false kind of wit which makes an Echo 
talk sensibly, and give rational answers. Echoes were frequently introduced 
by the ancient poets (Ovid. Metam. iii. 379 ; Anthol. Gr. iii. 6, &c), and 
had become a fashion in England from the Elizabethan era to the time when 
Butler wrote. Addison, see Spectator 59, reproves this, as he calls it, "silly 



CANTO III.] HUDIBBAS. 93 

More wistfully, by many times, 

Than in small poets' splay-foot rhymes, 1 

That make her, in their ruthful stories, 

To answer to inter'gatories, 

And most unconscionably depose 195 

To things of which she nothing knows ; 

And when she has said all she can say, 

'Tis wrested to the lover's fancy. 

Quoth he, O whither, wicked Bruin, 

Art thou fled to my — Echo, ruin. 200 

I thought th' hadst scorn'd to budge a step, 

For fear. Quoth Echo, Marry guep? 

Am not I here to take thy part ? 

Then what has quail'd thy stubborn heart ? 

Have these bones rattled, and this head 205 

So often in thy quarrel bled ? 

K"or did I ever wince or grudge it, 

Eor thy dear sake. Quoth she, Mum budget. 3 

Thinks't thou 'twill not be laid i' th' disk 4 

Thou turn'dst thy back ? Quoth Echo, Pish. 210 

To run from those th' hadst overcome 

Thus cowardly ? Quoth Echo, Mam. 

But what a-vengeance makes thee fly 

From me too, as thine enemy ? 

kind of device," and cites Erasmus's Dialogues, where an Echo is made to 
answer in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. But all the ancient Echoes are out- 
done by the Irish Echo, which in answer to " How do you do, Paddy 
Blake ? " echoed, "Pretty well, thank you." 

1 Supposed to he a sneer at Sir Philip Sidney, who in his Arcadia has a 
long poem between the speaker and Echo. 

2 An exclamation or small oath, having no particular import, apparently 
the origin of our Marry come up. It is used by Taylor the "Water Poet, 
Ben Jonson, and Gayton in his Translation of Don Quixote. 

3 That is, " be silent," in allusion to what Shakspeare puts into the mouth 
of Master Slander : " I come to her in white, and cry mum ; she cries bud- 
get ; and by that we know one another." — Merry Wives, Act v. sc. 2. 

* To lay in one's dish, to make an accusation against one, to lay a charge 
at one's door. 

Last night you lay it, madam, in our dish, 
How that a maid of ours (whom we must check) 
Had broke your bitches leg. 

Sir John Harrington, Epigr. i. 27. 



94 HUDIBRAS. [PAET T. 

Or, if thou hast no thought of rue, 215 

Nor what I have endur'd for thee, 

Tet shame and honour might prevail 

To keep thee thus from turning tail : 

For who would grutch to spend his Mood in 

His honour's cause ? Quoth she, a Puddin. 220 

This said, his grief to anger turn'd, 

Which in his manly stomach burn'd ; 

Thirst of revenge, and wrath, in place 

Of sorrow, now began to blaze. 

He vow'd the authors of his woe 225 

Should equal vengeance undergo ; 

And with their bones and flesh pay dear 

Eor what he suffer' d and his bear. 

This b'ing resolv'd, with equal speed 

And rage, he hasted to proceed 230 

To action straight, and giving o'er 

To search for Bruin any more, 

He went in quest of Hudibras, 

To find him out, where'er he was ; 

And if he were above ground, vow'd 235 

He 'd ferret him, lurk where he wou'd. 

But scarce had he a furlong on 
This resolute adventure gone, 
When he encounter' d with that crew 
Whom Hudibras did late subdue. 24C 

Honour, rerenge, contempt, and shame, 
Did equally their breasts inflame. 
'Mong these the fierce Magnano was,- 
And Talgol, tie to Hudibras ; 

Cerdon and Colon, warriors stout, 245 

And resolute, as ever fought ; 
Whom furious Orsin thus bespoke : 

Shall we, quuth he, thus basely brook 
The vile affront that paltry ass, 
And feeble scoundrel, Hudibras, 25C 

With that more paltry ragamuffin, 
Halpho, with vapoaring and huffing, 
Have put upon us, like tame cattle, 
Ab if th' had routed us in battle ? 



CANTO III.] HUDIBEAS. 95 

For my part, it shall ne'er be said 255 

I for the washing gave my head : l 

Nor did I turn my back for fear 

O' th' rascals, but loss of my bear, 2 

Which now I 'm like to undergo ; 

For whether these fell wounds, or no, 260 

He has received in fight, are mortal, 

Is more than all my skill can foretel ; 

~Nor do I know what is become 

Of him, more than the Pope of Borne, 3 

But if I can but find them out 265 

That caused it, as I shall no doubt, 

"Where'er th' in hugger-mugger lurk, 4 

I '11 make them rue their handiwork, 

And wish that they had rather dar'd 

To pull the devil by the beard. 5 270 

Quoth Cerdon, noble Orsin, th' hast 
Great reason to do as thou say'st, 
And so has ev'rybody here, 
As well as thou hast, or thy bear : 
Others may do as they see good ; 275 

But if this twig be made of wood 
That will hold tack, I '11 make the fur 
Ply 'bout the ears of the old cur, 

1 That is, behaved cowardly, or surrendered at discretion : jeering ob- 
liquely perhaps at the anabaptistical notions of Ralpho. Hooker, orVowler, 
in his description of Exeter, written about 1584, speaking of the parson of 
St Thomas, who was hanged during the siege, says, "he was a stout man, 
who would not give his head for the polling, nor his beard for the washing." 
Grey gives the following quotation from Beaumont and Fletcher, Cupid's 
Revenge, Act iv. " 1st Citizen. It holds, he dies this morning. 2nd Citizen. 
Then happy man be his fortune. 1st Citizen. And so am I and forty more 
good fellows, that will not give their heads for the washing" 

2 Var. Of them, but losing of my bear. In all editions between 1674 
and 1704. 

3 This common saying is a sneer at the Pope's infallibility. 

4 The confusion or want of order occasioned by haste and secrecy. 

and we have done but greenly 

In hugger-mugger to inter him. . 

Hamlet, iv. 5. See also Wright's Glossary. 

5 A proverbial expression used for any bold or daring enterprise : so we 
say, To take a lion by the beard. The Spaniards deemed it the most un- 
pardonable of affronts to be pulled by the beard, and would resent it at 
the hazard of life. 



96 HUDIBEAS. [PAET I 

And th' other mongrel vermin, Ralph, 

That brav'd us all in his behalf. 280 

Thy bear is safe, and out of peril, 

Tho' lugg'd indeed, and wounded very ill ; 

Myself aud Trulla made a shift 

To help him out at a dead lift ; 

And having brought him bravely off, 285 

Have left him where he's safe enough : 

There let him rest ; for if we stay, 

The slaves may hap to get away. 

This said, they all engag'd to join 
Their forces in the same design, 290 

And forthwith pat themselves, in search 
Of Hudibras, upon their march : 
"Where leave we them awhile, to tell 
"What the victorious Knight befell ; 
For such, Crowdero being fast 295 

In dungeon shut, we left him last. 
Triumphant laurels seem'd to grow 
Nowhere so green as on his brow ; 
Laden with which, as well as tir'd 
With conqu'ring toil, he now retir'd 300 

Unto a neighb'ring castle by, 
To rest his body, and apply 
Fit med'cines to each glorious bruise 
He got in fight, reds, blacks, and blues ; 
To mollify th' uneasy pang 305 

Of ev'ry honourable bang. 
"Which b'ing by skilful midwife drest, 
He laid him down to take his rest. 

But all in vain : he 'ad got a hurt 
O' th' inside, of a deadlier sort, 310 

By Cupid made, who took his stand 
Upon a widow's jointure-land, 1 

1 The widow is presumed by Grey to be Mrs Tomson, who had a jointure 
of £200 a year. The courtship appears to be a fact dressed up by Butler's 
humour (although the editor of 1819 thinks it apocryphal) from Walker's 
History of Independency, i. p. 170. "We learn that Sir Samuel Luke, to re- 
pair his decayed estate, sighed for the widow's jointure, but met with fatal 
obstacles in his suit, for she was a mere coquet, and, what was worse as re- 
garded her suitor's principles, she was a royalist. Her inexorableness, says 
Mr Walker, was eventually the cause of the knight's death. 



CAXTO III.] HrDIBKAS. 97 

For he, in all his aru'rous battles, 

JNo 'dvantage finds like goods and chattels, 

Drew home his bow, and aiming right, 315 

Let fly an arrow at the Knight ; 

The shaft against a rib did glance, 

And gall him in the pnrtenance ; 1 

But time had somewhat 'swaged his pain, 

After he had found his suit in vain : 3?o 

For that proud dame, for whom his soul 

Was burnt in 's belly like a coal, 

That belly that so oft did ake, 

And suffer griping for her sake, 

Till purging comfits and ant's eggs 2 325 

Had almost brought him off" his legs, — 

Us'd him so like a base rascallion, 

That old Pyg — what d' y' call him — malion, 

That cut his mistress out of stone, 3 

Had not so hard a hearted one. 330 

She had a thousand jadish tricks, 

"Worse than a mule that flings and kicks ; 

'Mong which one cross-grain' d freak she had, 

As insolent as strange and mad ; 

She could love none but only such 335 

As scorn' d and hated her as much. 4 

'Twas a strange riddle of a lady ; 

Not love, if any lov'd her ? hey-day ! 5 

So cowards never use their might, 

But against such as will not fight. 340 

1 A ludicrous name for the knight's heart : taken from a calf s head and 
purtenance, as it is vulgarly called, instead of appurtenance (or pluck), 
which, among other entrails, contains the heart. The word is used in the 
same sense m the Bible. See Exodus xii. 9. 

3 Ants' eggs were formerly supposed, by some, to be antaphrodisiacs, or 
antidotes to love passions. See Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft, b. vi. 
ch. 7. 

3 Pygmalion, as the mycologists say, fell in love with a statue of his 
own carving ; which Venus, to gratify him, turned into a living woman. 
See Ovid's Metamorphoses, lib. x. 1. 247. 

4 Such capricious kind of love is described by Horace : Satires, book i. 
ii. 105. 

5 So in the edition of 1678, in others it is ha-day, but either may stand, 
as they both signify a mark of admiration. See Skinner and Junius. 

H 



98 HUDIBBAS. [PAET I. 

So some diseases have been found 

Only to seize upon the sound. 1 

He that gets her by heart, must say her 

The back-way, like a witch's prayer. 2 

Meanwhile the Knight had no small task 345 

To compass what he durst not ask : 

He loves, but dares not make the motion ; 

Her ignorance is his devotion : 3 

Like caitiff* vile, that for misdeed 

Rides with his face to rump of steed; 4 350 

Or rowing scull, he 's fain to love, 

Look one way and another move ; 

Or like a tumbler that does play 

His game, and look another way, 5 

Until he seize upon the coney ; 355 

Just so does he by matrimony. 

1 " It is common for horses, as well as men, to be afflicted with sciatica, 
or rheumatism, to a great degree, for weeks together, and Avhen they once 
get clear of the fit, never perhaps hear any more of it while they live : for 
these distempers, with some others, called salutary distempers, seldom or 
never seize upon an unsound body." Bracken's Farriery Improved, ii. 46. 
The meaning then, from ver. 338, is this : As the widow loved none that were 
disposed to love her, so cowards fight with none that are disposed to fight 
with them : so some diseases seize upon none that are already distempered, 
but upon those only who, through the firmness of their constitution, seem 
least liable to such attacks. 

2 That is, the Lord's Prayer read backwards. The Spectator, No. 61, 
speaking of an epigram called the Witch's Prayer, says, it fell into verse 
whether read backwards or forwards, excepting only that it cursed one 
way and blessed the other." See Spectator, No. 110, 117, upon Witch- 
craft. 

3 A banter on the Papists, who, denying to the laity the use of the Bible 
or Prayer-book in the vulgar tongue, are charged with asserting, that 
"ignorance is the mother of devotion." The wit here is in making the 
widow's ignorance of his love the cause of the Knight's devotion. 

*. Dr Grey supposes this may allude to five members of the army, who, 
on the 6th of March, 1648, were forced to ride in New Palace yard with 
their faces towards their horses' tails, had their swords broken over their 
heads, and were cashiered, for petitioning the Rump for relief of the op- 
pressed commonwealth. 

5 A dog, called by the Latins Vertagus, that rolls himself in a heap, and 
tumbles over, disguising his shape and motion, till he is near enough to 
his object to seize it by a sudden spring. The tumbler was generally used 
in hunting rabbits. See Caius de Canibus Britannicis (Kay, on Englishe 
Dogges, sm. 4to, Lond. 1573), and Martial, lib. xiv. Epig. 200. 



CA>"TO III.] nUDIBEAS. 09 

But all in vain : her subtle snout 

Did quickly wind his meaning out ; 

Which she return'd with too much scorn, 

To he by man of honour borne ; 360 

Tet much he bore, until the distress 

He suffer'd from his spightful mistress 

Did stir his stomach, and the pain 

He had endur'd from her disdain 

Turn'd to regret so resolute, 365 

That he resolv'd to wave his suit, 

And either to renounce her quite, 

Or for a while play least in sight. 

This resolution b'ing put on, 

He kept some months, and more had done, 370 

But being brought so nigh by fate, 

The vict'ry he achiev'd so late 

Did set his thoughts agog, and ope 

A door to discontinu'd hope, 1 

That seem'd to promise he might win 375 

His dame too, now his hand was in ; 

And that his valour, and the honour 

He 'ad newly gain'd, might work upon her : 

These reasons made his mouth to water, 

"With am'rous longings to be at her. 380 

Thought he unto himself, who knows 
But this brave conquest o'er my foes 
May reach her heart, and make that stoop, 
As I but now have forc'd the troop ? 
If nothing can oppugne love, 2 385 

And virtue invious 3 ways can prove, 
"What may not he confide to do 
That brings both love and virtue too ? 
But thou bring'st valour too, and wit, 
Two things that seldom fail to hit. 390 

Valour 's a mouse-trap, wit a gin, 
"Which women oft are taken in : 4 

1 One of the canting phrases used by the sectaries, when they entered on 
any new mischief. 

2 Eead oppugne, as three syllables, to make the line of sufficient length. 

3 That is, impassable. See Horace, III. 2. 

* Assuming that women are often captivated by a red coat or a copy of 



103 HUDIBRAS. [PAST I. 

Then, Hudibras, why should'st thou fear 

To he, that art a conqueror ? 

Fortune the audacious doth juvare, 1 395 

But lets the timid ous 2 miscarry : 

Then, while the honour thou hast got 

Is spick and span new, piping hot, 3 

Strike her up bravely thou hadst best, 

And trust thy fortune with the rest. 400 

Such thoughts as these the Knight did keep 
More than his bangs, or fleas, from sleep ; 
And as an owl, that in a barn 
Sees a motise creeping in the corn, 
Sits still, and shuts his round blue eyes, 405 

As if he slept, until he spies 
The little beast within his reach, 
Then starts, and seizes on the wretch ; 
So from his couch the Knight did start, 
To seize upon the widow's heart ; 410 

Crying, with hasty tone and hoarse, 
Ralpho, dispatch, to horse, to horse ! 
And. 'twas but time ; for now the rout, 
We left engag'd to seek him out, 
By speedy marches were advanc'd 415 

Up to the fort where he ensconc'd, 
And all the avenues possest 
About the place, from east to west. 

That done, awhile they made a halt, 
To view the ground, and where t' assault : 420 

Then call'd a council, which was best, 
By siege, or onslaught, to invest 
The enemy ; and 'twas agreed 
By storm and onslaught to proceed. 
This b'ing resolv'd, in comely sort 425 

They now drew up t' attack tlie fort ; 

1 Alluding to the familiar quotation, Fortes Fortuna adjuvat, " Fortune 
favours the hold." 

' Timidous, from timidus ; the hero being ia a latinizing humour. 

3 Spick and span is derived by Dr Grey from spike, which signifies a nail 
of. iron, as well as a nail in measure, and span, which is a measure of nine 
inches, or quarter of a yard. This applied to a new suit means that it has 
just been measured by the nail and span. Eay gives a different derivation ; 
see Bonn's Handbook of Proverbs, page 178. 



CANTO III.] HUDIBEAS. 101 

When Hrdibras, about to enter 

Upon anothergates adventure, 1 

To Ralpho call'd aloud to arm, 

Not dreaming of approaching storm. 43 i 

"Whether dame Fortune, or the care 

Of angel baa, or tutelar, 

Did arm, or thrust him on a danger. 

To which he was an utter stranger, 

That foresight might, or might not, blot 435 

The glory he had newly got ; 

Or to his shame it might be said, 

They took him napping in his bed : 

To them we leave it to expound, 

That deal in sciences profound. iu 

His courser scarce he had bestrid, 
And Ealpho that on which he rid, 
"When setting ope the postern gate, 
Which they thought best to sally at, 2 
The foe appear'd, drawn up and drill' d, 445 

• Ready to charge them in the field. 
This somewhat startled the bold Knight, 
Surpris'd with th' unexpected sight : 
The bruises of his bones and flesh 
He thought began to smart afresh ; 450 

Till recollecting wonted courage, 
His fear was soon converted to rage, 
And thus he spoke : The coward foe,- 
Whom we but now gave quarter to, 
Look, yonder's rally'd, and appears 455 

As if they had outrun their fears ; 
The glory we did lately get, 
The Fates command us to repeat ; 3 

1 That is, an adventure of another kind ; so Sanderson, p. 47, third ser- 
mon ad cleram. "If we be of the spirituality, there should be in us an- 
othergates manifestation of the spirit." The Americans, in conformity with 
a prevailing form, might read it "another guess." 

2 Variation in editions 1674 to 1704 — 

To take the field and sally at. 

3 This is exactly in the style of victorious leaders. Thus Hannibal en- 
couraged his men : " These are the same Romans whom you have beaten 
so often." And Octavius addressed his soldiers at Actium : " It is the same 



102 HUDIBEAS. [PAET I. 

And to their wills we must succumb, 

Quocunque trahuni, 'tis our doom. 460 

This is the same numeric crew 

"Which we so lately did subdue ; 

The self-same individuals that 

Did run, as mice do from a cat, 

"When we courageously did wield 465 

Our martial weapons in the field, 

To tug for victory : and when 

We shall our shining blades agen 

Brandish in terror o'er our heads, 

They '11 straight resume their wonted dreads. 470 

Pear is an ague, that forsakes 

And haunts, by fits, those whom it takes ; ' 

And they'll opine they feel the pain 

And blows they felt to-day, again. 

Then let us boldly charge them home, 475 

And make no doubt to overcome. 

This said, his courage to inflame, 
He call'd upon his mistress' name ; 2 
His pistol next he cock'd anew, 

And out his nut-brown whinyard drew ; 3 480 

And placing Balpho in the front, 
Eeserv'd himself to bear the brunt, 
As expert warriors use ; then ply'd, 
With iron heel, his courser's side, 
Conveying sympathetic speed 485 

From heel of Knight to heel of steed. 
• Meanwhile the foe, with equal rage 
And speed, advancing to engage, 
Both parties now were drawn so close, 
Almost to come to handy-blows : 490 

When Orsin first let fly a stone 
At Balpho ; not so huge a one 

Antony whom you once drove out of the field before Mutina : Be, as you 
have been, conquerors." And so, too, Napoleon on several occasions. 

1 Var. Haunts by turns, in the editions of 1663. 

2 A hit at the old Romances of Knight-errantry. In like manner Cer- 
vantes makes Don Quixote invoke his Dulcinea upon almost every occasion. 

3 Whinyard signifies a sword ; it is chiefly used in contempt or banter. 
Johnson derives it from whin, furze ; so whinniard, the short scythe or in- 
strument with which country people cut whins. 



OAKTO in.] HUDIBBAS. 103 

As that which Diomed did maul 
^Eneas on the bum withal ; ' 

Yet big enough, if rightly hurl'd, 495 

T' have sent him to another world, 
"Whether above ground, or below, 
"Which saints, twice dipt, are destin'd to. 2 
The danger startled the bold Squire, 
And made him some few steps retire ; 500 

But Hudibras advanc'd to's aid, 
And rous'd his spirits half dismay'd. 
He wisely doubting lest the shot 
O' th' enemy, now growing hot, 

Might at a distance gall, press'd. close 505 

To come, pell-mell, to handy-blows, 
And that he might their aim decline, 
Advanc'd still in an oblique line ; 
But prudently forbore to fire, 

Till breast to breast he had got nigher ; 3 510 

As expert warriors use to do, 
When hand to hand they charge their foe. 
This order the advent'rous Knight, 
Most soldier-like, observ'd in fight, 
When Fortune, as she's wont, turn'd fickle, 515 

And for the foe began to stickle. 
The more shame for her Groodyship 
To give so near a friend the slip. 
For Colon, choosing out a stone, 
' Levell'd so right, it thump'd upon 520 

His manly paunch, Avith such a force, 
As almost beat him off his horse, 
He loos'd his whinyard, 4 and the rein, 
But laying fast hold on the mane, 
Preserv'd his seat : and, as a goose 525 

In death contracts his talons close, 



1 See Iliad v. 304. Virgil. Mn. I. 101. Juvenal. Sat. xv. 65. 

2 Meaning the Anabaptists, who thought they obtained a higher degree 
sanctification by being re-baptized. 

3 Alluding to Cromwell's prudent conduct in this respect, who seldom 
suffered his soldiers to fire till they were near enough to the enemy to be 
sure of doing execution. 

4 Var. He lost his whinyard. 



104 HTJDIBEAS. • ' [PAET I. 

So did the Knight, and with one claw 
The trigger of his pistol draw. 
The gun went off; and as it was 
Still fatal to stout Hudibras, 530 

In all his feats of arms, when least 
He dreamt of it, to prosper best ; 
So now he far'd : the shot let fly, 
At random, 'mong the enemy, 

Pierced Talgol's gaberdine, 1 and grazing 535 

Upon his shoulder, in the passing 
Lodg'd in Magnano's brass habergeon, 2 
"Who straight, A surgeon ! cried — a surgeon ! 
He tumbled down, and, as he fell, 
Did murder ! murder ! murder ! yell. 540 

This startled their whole body so, 
- That if the Knight had not let go 
His arms, but been in -tfferlike plight, 
H' had won, the second time, the fight ; 
As, if the Squire had but fall'n on, 545 

He had inevitably clone. 
But he, diverted with the care 
Of Hudibras his wound, 3 forbare 
To press th' advantage of his fortune, 
"While danger did the rest dishearten. 550 

For he with Cerdon b'ing engag'd 
In close encounter, they both wag'd 
The fight so well, 'twas hard to say 
"Which side was like to get the day. 
And now the busy work of death 555 

Had tir'd them so, they 'greed to breathe, 
Preparing to renew the fight, 
"When th' hard disaster of the knight, 
And th' other party, did divert 

Their fell intent, and forc'd them part. 4 560 

E-alpho press'd up to Hudibras, 
And Cerdon where Magnano was, 

1 A coarse robe or mantle ; the term is used by Shylock in the Merchant 
of Venice, Act I. sc. 3. 

2 Habergeon, a diminutive of the French word hauberg, a little coat of 
mail. But here it signifies the tinker's budget. 

3 Var. Hudibras, his hurt. i Var And force their sullen rage to part. 



CANTO III.] HTJDIBEA.S. 105 

Each striving to confirm his party 
"With stont encouragements and hearty. 

Quoth Ralpho, Courage, valiant Sir, 565 

And let revenge and honour stir 
Tour spirits up ; once more fall on, 
The shatter'd foe begins to run : 
Eor if but half so well you knew 
To use your vict'ry as subdue, 1 570 

They durst not, after such a blow 
As you have giv'n them, face us now ; 
But from so formidable a soldier, 
Had fled like crows when they smell powder. 2 
Thrice have they seen your sword aloft 575 

Wav'd o'er their heads, and fled as oft : 
But if you let them recollect 
Their spirits, now dismay'd and check'd, 
Tou '11 have a harder game to play 
Than yet y' have had, to get the day. 580 

Thus spoke the stout Squire ; but was heard 
By Hudibras with small regard. 
His thoughts were fuller of the bang 
He lately took, than Ralph's harangue ; 
To which he answer'd, Cruel fate, 585 

Tells me thy counsel comes too late, 
The clotted blood 3 within my hose, 
That from my wounded body flows, 
With mortal crisis doth portend 
My days to appropinque an end. 4 590 

I am for action now unfit, 
Either of fortitude or wit ; 
Eortune, my foe, begins to frown, 
Besolv'd to pull my stomach down. 

1 This perhaps has some reference to Prince Rupert, who, at Marston 
Moor, and on some other occasions, was successful at his first onset by charg- 
ing with great fury, but lost his advantage by too long a pursuit. See 
Echard, vol. ii. p. 480. 

2 This belief still prevails in all rural districts. Plot, in his Natural 
History of Oxfordshire, says : " If the crows towards harvest-time are 
mischievous, the farmers dig holes near the corn, and fill them with cinders 
and gunpowder, sticking crow feathers about them, which they find suc- 
cessful." 3 Var. The knotted blood. 

* One of the knight's hard words, signifying to approach, or draw near. 



106 HTTDTBRAS. [PABT I. 

I am not apt, upon a wound, 695 

Or trivial basting, to despond ; 

Tet I 'd be loath my days to curta'l ; 

For if I thought my wounds not mortal, 

Or that we'd time enough as yet 

To make an honourable retreat, 600 

'Twere the best course ; but if they find 

We fly, and leave our arms behind 

For them to seize on, the dishonour, 

And danger too, is such, I'll sooner 

Stand to it boldly, and take quarter, 605 

To let them see I am no starter. 

In all the trade of war no feat 

Is nobler than a brave retreat : 

For those that run away, and fly, 

Take place at least o' th' enemy. 1 610 

This said, the Squire, with active speed, 
Dismounted from his bony 2 steed 
To seize the arms, which by mischance 
Fell from the bold Knight in a trance. 
These being found out, and restor'd 615 

To Hudibras, their natural lord, 
As a man may say, 3 with might and main, 
He hasted to get up again. 4 

1 These two lines were not in the first editions of 1663, but added in 
1674. This same notion is repeated in part iii. canto iii. 241 — 244. But 
the celebrated lines of similar import, commonly supposed to be in Hudi- 
bras, 

" For he that fights and runs away 
May live to fight another day," 

are found in the Musarum Delicise (by Sir Jno. Mennis and James Smith) 
12mo, Lond. 1656, and the type of them occurs in a much earlier collection, 
viz. The Apophthegmes of Erasmus, by Nico. Udall, 12mo, Lond. 1542, 
where they are thus given : 

That same man that rermeth awaie 

Maie again fight, an other daie. 

2 In some editions it is bonny, but I prefer bony, which is the reading of 
1678.— Nash. 

3 A sneer at the expletives then used in common conversation, such as : 
and he said, and she said, and so sir, d'ye see, &c. See Spectator, 371. 

4 Var. The active Squire, with might and main, 

Prepar'd in haste to mount again. 



CAXTO Til.] HTTPIBEAS. 107 

Thrice lie essay'd to mount aloft ; 
But by his weighty bum. as oft 620 

He was pull'd back : 'till having found 
Th' advantage of the rising ground, 
Thither he led his warlike steed, 
And having plac'd him right, with speed 
Prepar'd again to scale the beast, 625 

"When Orsin, who had newly drest 
The bloody scar upon the shoulder 
Of Talgol, with Promethean powder, 1 
And now was searching for the shot 
That laid Magnano on the spot, 630 

Beheld the sturdy Squire aforesaid 
Preparing to climb up his horse-side ; 
He left his cure,- and laying hold 
Upon his arms, with courage bold 
Cry'd out, 'Tis now no time to dally, 635 

The enemy begin to rally : 
Let us that are unhurt and whole 
Pall on, and happy man be's dole. 2 
This said, like to a thunderbolt, 
He flew with fury to th' assault, 640 

Striving the enemy to attack 
Before he reach'd his horse's back. 
Palpho was mounted now, and gotten 
O'erthwart his beast with active vau'ting, 
"Wriggling his body to recover 645 

His seat, and cast his right leg over ; 
"When Orsin, rushing in, bestow'd 
On horse and man so heavy a load, 
The beast was startled, and begun 
To kick and fling like mad, and run, 650 

Bearing the tough Squire, like a sack, 
Or stout king Richard, on his back ; 3 

1 See canto ii. ver. 225. — Prometheus boasts especially of communicating 
to mankind the knowledge of medicines. JEschyli Prometh. Vinct. v. 491. 

2 A common saying, repeatedly occurring in Shakspeare and the old 
poets, equivalent to, — " May it be his lot (dole) to be a happy man ! " 

3 After the battle of Bosworth Field, -where Richard III. fell, his body 
was stripped, and, in an ignominious manner, laid across a horse's back like 
a slaughtered deer ; his head and arms hanging on one side, and his legs on 
the other, besmeared with blood and dirt. 



10S HTJDIBRAS. [PAET I. 

'Till stumbling, he threw him down, 1 

Sore bruis'd, and cast into a swoon. 

Meanwhile the Knight began to rouse 655 

The sparkles of his wonted prowess ; 

He thrust his hand into his hose, 

And found, both by his eyes and nose, 

'Twas only choler, 2 and not blood, 

That from his wounded body flow'd. 660 

This, with the hazard of the Squire, 

Inflam'd him with despightful ire ; 

Courageously he fac'd about, 

And drew his other pistol out, 

And now had half-way bent the cock, 665 

When Cerdon gave so fierce a shock, 

With sturdy truncheon, 'thwart his arm, 

That down it fell, and did no harm : 

Then stoutly pressing on with speed, 

Essay'd to pull him off his steed. 670 

The Knight his sword had only left, 

With which he Cerdon's head had cleft, 

Or at the least cropt off a limb, 

But Orsin came and rescu'd him. 

He with his lance attack'd the Knight 675 

Upon his quarters opposite. 

But as a bark, that in foul weather, 

Toss'd by two adverse winds together, 

Is bruis'd and beaten to and fro, 
, And knows not which to turn him to : 680 

So far'd the Knight between two foes, 

And knew not which of them t' oppose ; 

'Till Orsin charging with his lance 

At Hudibras, by spightful chance 
- Hit Cerdon such a bang, as stunn'd 685 

And laid him flat upon the ground. 

At this the Knight began to cheer up, 

And raising up himself on stirrup, 

Cry'd out, Victoria! lie thou there, 

And I shall straight dispatch another, 690 

1 We must here read stumble-ing, to make three syllables. 

2 The delicate reader will easily guess what is here intended by the word 
choler. 



CANTO III.] HTJDIBIt.YS. 109 

To bear thee company in death : 

But first I'll halt awhile, and breathe. 

As well he might : for Orsin griev'd 

At th' wound that Cerdon had receiv'd, 

Ban to relieve him with his lor-e, 6y5 

And cure the hurt he made before. 

Meanwhile the Knight had wheel'd about, 

To breathe himself, and next find out 

Th' advantage of the ground, wdiere best 

He might the ruffled foe infest. 700 

This b'ing resolv'd, he spurr'd his steed, 

To run at Orsin with full speed, 

While he was busy in the care 

Of Cerdon's wound, and unaware : 

But he was quick, and had already 705 

Unto the part apply' d remedy ; 

And seeing th' enemy prepar'd, 

Drew up, and stood upon his guard : 

Then, like a warrior, right expert 

And skilful in the martial art, 710 

The subtle Knight straight made a halt, 

And judg'd it best to stay th' assault, 

Until he had reliev'd the Squire, 

And then, in order, to retire ; 

Or, as occasion should invite, 715 

"With forces join'd renew the fight. 

Balpho, by this time disentranc'd, 

Upon his bum himself advanc'd, 

Though sorely bruis'd ; his limbs all o'er, 

With ruthless bangs were stiff and sore ; 720 

Bight fain he would have got upon 

His feet again, to get him gone ; 

When Hudibras to aid him came. 

Quoth he, and call'd him by his name, 1 
Courage, the day at length is ours, 725 

And we once more as conquerors, 
Have both the field and honour won, 
The foe is profligate, 2 and run ; 

1 A parody on a phrase continually recurring in Homer. 
* That is, routed : from the Latin, profligo, to put to flight. 



110 HUDIBEAS. [PAET I. 

I mean all such as can, for some 

This hand hath sent to their long home ; 730 

And some lie sprawling on the ground, 

"With many a gash and bloody wound. 

Caesar himself could never say, 

He got two vict'ries in a day, 

As I have done, that can say, twice I, 735 

In one day, Veni, vidi, vici. 1 

The foe's so numerous, that we 

Cannot so often vincere, 2 

And they perire, and yet enow 

Be left to strike an after-blow. 740 

Then, lest they rally, and once more 

Put us to fight the bus'ness o'er, 

Cet up, and mount thy steed ; dispatch, 

And let us both their motions watch. 

Quoth Ralph, I should not, if I were 
In case for action, now be here ; 
ISTor have I turn'd my back, or hang'd 
An arse, for fear of being bang'd. 
It was for you I got these harms, 
Advent'ring to fetch off your arms. 750 

The blows and drubs I have receiv'd 
Have bruis'd my body, and bereav'd 
My limbs of strength : unless you stoop, 
And reach your hand to pull me up, 
I shall lie here, and be a prey 755 

To those who now are run away. 

That thou shalt not, quoth Hudibras : 
"We read, the ancients held it was 
More honourable far servare 

Givem, than slay an adversary ; 760 

The one we oft to-day have done, 
The other shall dispatch anon : 

1 I came, I saw, I overcame : the words in which Caesar announced to 
the Senate his victory over Pharnaces. In his consequent triumph at Eome 
they were inscribed on a tablet, and carried before him. 

8 A great general, heing informed that his enemies were very numerous, 
replied, then there are enough to be killed, enough to be taken prisoners, 
and enough to run away. 



CANTO III.] HUDIBRAS. 1L1 

And tho' tli' art of a diff'rent church, 

I will riot leave thee in the lurch. 1 

This said, he jogg'd his good steed nigher, 705 

And steer'd him gently toward the Squire ; 

Then bowing down his body, stretch'd 

His hand out, and at Ealpho reach'd ; 

When Trulla, whom he did not mind, 

Charg'd him like lightning behind. 770 

She had been long in search about 

Magnano's wound, to find it out ; 

But could find none, nor where the shot 

That had so startled him was got : 

But having found the worst was past 775 

She fell to her own work at last, 

The pillage of the prisoners, 

"Which in all feats of arms was hers : 

And now to plunder Balph she flew, 

When Hudibras his hard fate drew 780 

To succour him ; for, as he bow'd 

To help him up, she laid a load 

Of blows so heavy, and plac'd so well, 

On th' other side, that down he fell. 

Yield, scoundrel, base, quoth she, or die, 785 

Thy life is mine, and liberty : 
But if thou think'st I took thee tardy, 
And dar'st presume to be so hardy, 
To try thy fortune o'er afresh, 

I'll wave my title to thy flesh, 790 

Thy arms and baggage, now my right : 2 
And if thou hast the heart to try't, 
I'll lend thee back thyself awhile, 
And once more, for that carcase vile, 
Tight upon tick. — Quoth Hudibras, 795 

Thou offer'st nobly, valiant lass, 
And I shall take thee at thy word. 
First let me rise, and take mv sword ; 

This is a sneer at the Independents, who, when they got possession of 
the government, deserted their old allies, the Presbyterians, and treated 
them with great hauteur. 

2 The application of the "law of arms," as expounded in the old ro- 
mances, to this case, is exquisitely ludicrous. 



112 HTJDIBEAS. [PAET I. 

That sword, which has so oft this day 

Through squadrons of my foes made way, 800 

And some to other worlds dispatch'd, 

Now with a feeble spinster match'd, 

Will blush with blood ignoble stain'd, 

By which no honour's to be gain'd. 

But if thou'lt take m' advice in this, 80S 

Consider, while thou may'st, what 'tis 

To interrupt a victor's course, 

B' opposing such a trivial force. 

For if with conquest I come off, 

And that I shall do sure enough, 810 

Quarter thou canst not have, nor grace, 1 

By law of arms, in such a case ; 

Both which I now do offer freely. 

I scorn, quoth she, thou coxcomb silly, 
Clapping her hand upon her breech, 815 

To show how much she priz'd his speech, 
Quarter or counsel from a foe : 
If thou canst force me to it, do. 
But lest it should again be said, 

When I have once more won thy head, 820 

I took thee napping, unprepar'd, 
Arm, and betake thee to thy guard. 

This said, she to her tackle fell, 
And on the Knight let fall a peal 
Of blows so fierce, and prest so home, 825 

That he retir'd, and follow'd 's bum. 
Stand to't, quoth she, -or yield to mercy, 
It is not fighting arsie-versie 2 

1 L'Estrange records a parallel to this at the siege of Pontefract. An 
officer having had his horse shot under him, saw two or three common 
soldiers with their muskets over him as he lay on the ground, ready to beat 
out his brains ; the officer, with great presence of mind, told them to strike 
at their peril, for if they did, he swore a great oath he would not give 
quarter to a man of them. This so surprised them that they hesitated for 
an instant, during which the officer got up and made his escape. 

3 That is, wrong end uppermost, or b e foremost. So Ray, quoting 

Ben Jonson, has : — 

Passion of me, was ever man thus cross'd ? 
All things run arsi-vearsi, upside down. 

See Handbook of Proverbs, p. 148. 



Ci>"TO III.] HUDTBEAS. 113 

Shall serve thy turn. — This stirr'd his spleen 

More than the danger he was in, 830 

The blows he felt, or was to feel, 

Although th' already made him reel. 

Honour, despight, revenge, and shame, 

At once into his stomach came ; 

Which fir'd it so, he rais'd his arm 835 

Above his head, and rain'd a storm 

Of blows so terrible and thick, 

As if he meant to hash her quick. 

But she upon her truncheon took them, 

And by oblique diversion broke them ; 840 

"Waiting an opportunity 

To pay all back with usury, 

"Which long she fail'd not of; for now 

The Knight, with one dead-doing blow, 

Resolving to decide the fight, 845 

And she with quick and cunning slight 

Avoiding it, the force and weight 

He charg'd upon it was so great, 

As almost sway'd him to the ground : 

jNo sooner she th' advantage found, S50 

But in she flew ; and seconding, 

"With home-made thrust, the heavy swing, 

She laid him flat upon his side, 

And mounting on his trunk astride, 

Quoth she, I told thee what would come 655 

Of all thy vapouring, base scum. 

Say, will the law of arms allow ' 

I may have grace, and quarter now ? 

Or wilt thou rather break thy word, 

And stain thine honour, than thy sword ? 860 

A man of war to damn his soul, 

In basely breaking his parole. 



1 Instead of this and the nine following lines (857 to 866), these four 
stood in the two first editions of 1663. 

Shall I have quarter now, you ruffin ? 

Or wilt thou he worse than thy huffing ? 

Thou said'st th' wouldst kill me, marry wouldst thou: 

"Why dost thou not, thou Jack-a-nods thou ? 



114 HUDIBRAS. [PAET I. 

And when before the fight, th' hadst vow'd 

To give no quarter in cold blood ; 

Now thou hast got me for a Tartar, 1 865 

To make m' against my will take quarter ; 

Why dost not put me to the sword, 

But cowardly fly from thy word ? 

Quoth Hudibras, The day 's thine own ; 
Thou and thy stars have cast me down : 870 

My laurels are transplanted now, 
And flourish on thy conqu'ring brow : 
My loss of honour 's great enough, 
Thou need'st not brand it with a scoff: 
Sarcasms may eclipse thine own, 875 

But cannot blur my lost renown : 
I am not now in fortune's power, 
He that is down can fall no lower. 2 
The ancient heroes were illustr'ous 
For being benign, and not blust'rous 88C 

Against a vanquish' d foe : their swords 
"Where sharp and trenchant, not their words ; 
And did in light but cut work out 
T' employ their courtesies about. 3 

Quoth she, Altho' thou hast deserv'd, 886 

Base Slubberdegullion, 4 to be serv'd 
As thou didst vow to deal with me, 
If thou hadst got the victory ; 
Tet I should rather act a part 
That suits my fame, than thy desert. 89C 

1 The Tartars (says Purchas, in Ms Pilgrimes, p. 478) would rather die 
than yield, which makes them fight with desperate energy, whence the 
proverb, Thou hast caught a Tartar. — A man catches a Tartar when he 
falls into his own trap, or having a design upon another, is caught himself. 
" Help, help, cries one, I have caught a Tartar. Bring him along, an- 
swers his comrade. He will not come, says he. Then come without him, 
quoth the other. But he will not let me, says the Tartar-catcher." 

2 A literal translation of the proverb : Qui jacet in terra, non habet unde 
cadat. 

3 See Cleveland, in his letter to the Protector. " The most renowned 
heroes have ever with such tenderness cherished their captives, that their 
swords did but cut out work for their courtesies." 

4 That is, a drivelling fool : to slubber, in British, is to drivel ; and gul, or 
its diminutive gullion, a fool, or person easily imposed upon. The word 
is used by Taylor the Water Poet, in his " Laugh and grow fat." 



CAKTO IIT.] HUDIBEAS. 11;" 

Thy arms, thy liberty, beside 

All that's on th' outside of thy hide, 

Are mine by military law, 1 

Of which I will not bate one straw ; 

The rest, thy life and limbs, once more, 895 

Though doubly forfeit, I restore. 

Quoth Hudibras, It is too late 
For me to treat or stipulate ; 
What thou command'st I must obey ; 
Tet those whom I expugn'd to-day, 900 

Of thine own party, I let go, 
And gave them life and freedom too, 
Both dogs and bear, upon their parol, 
Whom I took pris'ners in this quarrel. 

Quoth Trulla, Whether thou or they 905 

Let one another run away, 
Concerns not me ; but was't not thou 
That gave Crowdero quarter too ? 
Crowdero, whom in irons bound, 
Thoirbasely threw'st into Lob's pound, 2 910 

"Where still he lies, and with regret 
His generous bowels rage and fret : 
But now thy carcase shall redeem, 
And serve to be exchang'd for him. 

This said, the Knight did straight submit, 915 

And laid his weapons at her feet : 
Next he disrob'd his gaberdine, 
And with it did himself resign. 
She took it, and forthwith divesting 
The mantle that she wore, said, jesting, 920 

Take that, and wear it for my sake ; 
Then threw it o'er his sturdy back : 

1 In public duels all horses, pieces of broken armour, or other furniture 
that fell to the ground, after the combatants entered the lists, were the fees 
of the marshal ; but the rest became the property of the victor. 

2 A cant term for a jail or the stocks, used by the old Dramatists. See 
Massinger's Duke of Milan, III. 2. — Dr Grey mentions a story of Mr Lob, 
a preacher among the dissenters, who, when their meetings were prohibited, 
contrived a trap-door in his pulpit, which led through many dark windings 
into a cellar. His adversaries once pursued him into these recesses, and, 
groping about in perplexity, one of them said that they had got into 
Lob's pound. 

1 2 



116 HUDIBRAS. [PAET I. 

And as the French, we conquer'd once, 

Now give us laws for pantaloons, 

The length of breeches, and the gathers, 925 

Port-cannons, perriwigs, and feathers, 1 

Just so the proud, insulting lass 

Array'd and dighted Hudibras. 2 

Meanwhile the other champions, yerst 3 
In hurry of the tight disperst, 930 

Arriv'd, when Trulla'd won the day,- 
To share in th' honour and the prey, 
And out of Hudibras his hide, 
With vengeance to be satisfy'd ; 

Which now they were about to pour 935 

Upon him in a wooden show'r : 
But Trulla thrust herself between, 
And striding o'er his back agen, 
She brandish' d o'er her head his sword 
And vow'd they should not break her word ; 940 

Sh' had given him quarter, and her blood, 
Or theirs, should make that quarter good. 
For she was bound, by law of arms, 
To see him safe from further harms. 
In dungeon deep Crowdero cast 945 

By Hudibras, as yet lay fast, 
Where to the hard and ruthless stones, 
His great heart made perpetual moans ; 

1 We seem at no time to have been averse to the French fashions, but 
they were quite the rage after the Restoration. Pantaloons were then a kind 
of loose breeches, commonly made of silk, and purled, which covered the 
legs, thighs, and part of the body. They are represented in some of Van- 
dyke's pictures. Port-cannons were streamers of ribands which hung from 
the knees of the short breeches ; they had grown to such excess in France, 
that Moliere was thought to have done good service by laughing them out 
of fashion. Perriwigs were brought from France in the reign of Elizabeth, 
but were not much used till after the Restoration." At first they were of 
various colours, to suit the complexion, and of immense size in large flowing 
curls, as we see on monuments in Westminster Abbey and in old portraits. 
Lord Bolingbroke is said to be the first who tied them up in knots ; which 
was esteemed so great an undress, that when his lordship first went to court 
in a wig of this fashion Queen Anne was offended, and said to those about 
her, " This man will come to me next court-day in his night-cap." 

2 Dighted, from the Anglo-Saxon dihtan, to dress, fit out. 

3 Yerst, or erst, means first. 



III.] HUDIBH.VS. 117 

Him she resolved that Huclihras 

Should ransom, and supply his place. 950 

This stopp'd their fury, and the basting 
"Which toward Hudibras was hasting. 
They thought it was but just and right, 
That what she had achiev'd in fight, 
She should dispose of how she pleas'd ; 955 

Crowdero ought to be releas'd : 
Xor could that any way be done 
So well, as this she pitch 'd upon : 
For who a better could imagine ? 
This therefore they resolv'd t' engage in. 960 

The Knight and Squire first they made 
Eise from the ground where they were laid, 
Then mounted both upon their horses, 
But with their faces to the arses. 
Orsin led Hudibras' s beast, 965 

And Talgol that which Ealpho prest ; 
"Whom stout Magnano, valiant Cerdon, 
And Colon, waited as a guard on ; 
All ush'ring Trulla, in the rear, 

With th' arms of either prisoner. 970 

In this proud order and array, 
They put themselves upon their way, 
Striving to reach th' enchanted Castle, 
"Where stout Crowdero in durance lay still. 
Thither with greater speed than shows, 975 

And triumph over conquer' d foes, 
Do use t' allow ; or than the bears, 
Or pageants borne before lord-mayors, 1 
Are wont to use, they soon arriv'd, 
In order, soldier-like contriv'd : 9SO 

Still marching in a warlike posture, 
As fit for battle as for muster. 
The Knight and Squire they first unhorse, 
And, bending 'gainst the fort their force, 
They all advanc'd, and round about 985 

Begirt the magical redoubt. 



1 I believe at the lord-mayor's show bears were led in procession, and 
afterwards baited for the diversion of the populace. — Nash. 



118 HUDIBKAS. [PAET I. 

Magnan' led up in this adventure, 

And made way for the rest to enter : 

For he was skilful in black art, 1 

No less than he that built the fort, 990 

And with an iron mace laid flat 

A breach, which straight all enter' d at, 

And in the wooden dungeon found 

Crowdero laid upon the ground : 

Him they release from durance base, 995 

Restored t' his fiddle and his case, 

And liberty, his thirsty rage 

"With luscious veng'ance to assuage ; 

For he no sooner was at large, 

But Trulla straight brought on the charge, 1000 

And in the self-same limbo put 

The Knight and Squire, where he was shut ; 

"Where leaving them i' th' wretched hole,' 2 

Their bangs and durance to condole, 

Confin'd and conjur'd into narrow 1005 

Enchanted mansion, to know sorrow, 

In the same order and array / 

Which they advanc'd, they march' d away : 

But Hudibras, who scorn' d to stoop 

To fortune, or be said to droop, 1010 

Cheer' d up himself with ends of verse, 

And sayings of philosophers. 

Quoth he, Th' one half of man, his mind, 
Is, sui juris, unconfined, 3 

And cannot be laid by the heels, 1015 

Whate'er the other moiety feels. 

1 Meaning the tinker Magnano. See Canto ii. 1. 336. 

2 In the edition of 1704 it is printed in Hockly hole, a pun on the place 
where their hocks or ankles were confined. Hockley Hole, or Hockley i' 
th' Hole, was the name of a place near Clerkenwell Green, resorted to for 
vulgar diversions. There is an old ballad entitled " Hockley i' th' hole, to 
the tune of the Fiddler in the Stocks." See Old Ballads, vol. i. p. 294. 

3 Referring to that distinction in the civil law which separates the juris- 
diction over the body from that over the mind ; (see Justinian's Institutes, 
III. tit. 8.) — and perhaps to Spinoza, who says that "knowledge makes 
us free by destroying the dominion of the passions and the power of 
external things over ourselves." In the succeeding lines the author shows 
his learning, by bantering the stoic philosophy ; and his wit, by comparing 
Alexander the Great with Diogenes. 



CA>-TO III.] HUDIBRA.S. 119 

'Tis not restraint, or liberty, 

That makes men prisoners or free ; 

But perturbations that possess 

The mind, or equanimities. 1020 

The whole world was not half so wide 

To Alexander, when he cry'd, 

Because he had but one to subdue, 1 

As was a paltry narrow tub to 

Diogenes : who is not said, 1025 

For aught that ever I could read, 

To whine, put finger i' th' eye, and sob, 

Because h' had ne'er another tub. 

The ancients make two sev'ral kinds 

Of prowess in heroic minds, 1030 

The active and the passive valiant, 

Both which are pari libra gallant ; 

For both to give blows, and to carry, 

In fights are equi-necessary : 

But in defeats, the passive stout 1035 

Are always found to stand it out 

Most desp'rately, and to out-do 

The active, 'gainst a conqu'ring foe : 

Tho' we with blacks and blues are suggil'd, 2 

Or, as the vulgar say, are cixdgel'd ; 1040 

He that is valiant, and dares fight, 

Though drubb'd, can lose no honour by't. 

Honour's a lease for lives to come, 

And cannot be extended from 

The legal tenant : 'tis a chattel 1045 

Not to be forfeited in battel. 

If he that in the field is slain, 

Be in the bed of honour lain, 3 

He that is beaten may be said 

To lie in honour's truckle-bed. 4 1050 



1 See Juven. Sat. x. 168 ; xiv. 308. 

2 Beaten black and blue ; from the Latin sucjgillare. 

3 "The bed of honour," says Farquhar (in the Recruiting Officer), "is 
a mighty large bed. Ten thousand people may lie in it together and never 
feel one another." 

4 The truckle-bed is a small bed upon wbeols, which goes under the 
larger one. The pun is upon the word "truckle." 



120 HUDIBBAS. |* PAKT *' 

Bor as we see tli' eclipsed sun 

By mortals is more gaz'd upon 

Than when, adorn'd with all his light, 

He shines in serene sky most bright ; 

So valour, in a low estate, 1055 

Is most admir'd and wonder'd at. 

Quoth Ralph, How great I do not know 
We may, by being beaten, grow ; 
But none that see how here we sit, 
Will judge us overgrown with wit. 1060 

As gifted brethren, preaching by 
A carnal hour-glass, 1 do imply 
Illumination, can convey 
Into them what they have to say, 
But not how much ; so well enough 1065 

Know you to charge, but not draw off. 
For who, without a cap and bauble, 2 
Having subdu'd a bear and rabble, 
And might with honour have come off, 
Would put it to a second proof: 1070 

A politic exploit, right fit 
Bor Presbyterian zeal and wit. 3 

Quoth Hudibras, That cuckoo's tone, 
Balpho, thou always harp'st upon ; 
When thou at anything would'st rail, 1075 

Thou mak'st presbytery thy scale 

1 In those days there was always an hour-glass placed conspicuously on 
or near the pulpit, in an iron frame, which was set immediately after giving 
out the text. An hour, or the sand run out, was considered the legitimate 
length of a sermon. This preaching hy the hour gave rise to an abundance 
of jokes, of which the following are examples : "A tedious spin-text having 
tired out his congregation by a sermon which had lasted through one turn 
of his glass and three parts of the second, without any prospect of its 
coming to a close, was, out of compassion to the yawning auditory, greeted 
with this short hint by the sexton, ' Pray, Sir, be pleased, when you have 
done, to leave the key under the door ; ' and thereupon departing, the congre- 
gation followed him." Another : A punning preacher, having talked a full 
hour, turned his hour-glass, and said : " Come, my friends, let us take an- 
other glass." 2 Who but one who deserves a fool's cap. 

3 Ralpho, being chagrined by his situation, not only blames the miscon- 
duct of the Knight, which had brought them into the scrape, but sneers at 
him for his religious principles. The Independents, at one time, were as 
inveterate against the Presbyterians as both were against the Church. 



CiXTO III.] UrDIBRAS. 121 

To take the height on't, and explain 

To what degree it is profane : 

"VYhats'ever will not with thy — what d'ye call 

Thy light — jump right, thou call'st synodical. 1080 

As if presbytery were a standard 

To size whats'ever's to he slander' d. 

Dost not remember how this day 

Thou to my beard was bold to say, 

That thou could'st prove bear-baiting equal 1085 

With synods, orthodox and legal ? 

Do, if thou can'st, for I deny't, 

And dare thee to't with all thy light. 1 

Quoth Ealpho, Truly that is no 
Hard matter for a man to do, 1090 

That has but any guts in's brains, 2 
And could believe it worth his pains ; 
But since you dare and urge me to it, 
You'll find I've light enough to do it. 

Synods are mystical bear-gardens, 1095 

AYhere elders, deputies, church-wardens, 
And other members of the court, 
Manage the Babylonish sport. 
For prolocutor, scribe, and bearward, 
Do differ only in a mere word. 11 00 

Both are but sev'ral synagogues 
Of carnal men, and bears, and dogs : 
Both antichristian assemblies, 
To mischief bent, as far's in them lies : 
Both stave and tail with fierce contests, 1105 

The one with men, the other beasts. 
The diff'rence is, the one fights with 
The tongue, the other with the teeth ; 
And that they bait but bears in this, 
In th' other souls and consciences ; 1110 

1 The Independents were great pretenders to inward light, for such they 
assumed to be the light of the spirit. They supposed that all their ac- 
tions, as well as their pravers and preachings, were immediately directed 
by it. 

4 A proverbial expression for one who has some share of common sense ; 
used by Sancho Panca to Don Quixote (Gayton's Translation) upon his mis- 
taking the barber's bason for a helmet. See Ray, in Handbook of Pro- 
verbs, p. 163. 



122 HUDIBEAS. [PART I. 

"Where saints themselves are brought to stake l 

For gospel-light, and conscience-sake ; 

Expos'd to scribes and presbyters, 

Instead of mastiff dogs and curs ; 

Than whom th' have less humanity, 1115 

For these at souls of men will fly. 

This to the prophet did appear, 

"Who in a vision saw a bear, 

Prefiguring the beastly rage 

Of church-rule, in this latter age : 2 1.120 

As is demonstrated at full 

By him that baited the pope's bull. 3 

Bears naturally are beasts of prey, 

That live by rapine ; so do they. 

"What are their orders, constitutions, 1125 

Church-censures, curses, absolutions, 

But sev'ral mystic chains they make, 

To tie poor Christians to the stake ? 

And then set heathen officers, 

Instead of dogs, about their ears. 1130 

For to prohibit and dispense, 

To find out, or to make offence ; 

Of hell and heav'n to dispose, 

To play with souls at fast and loose ; 

To set what characters they please, 1135 

And mulcts on sin or godliness ; 

Reduce the church to gospel-order, 

By rapine, sacrilege, and murder ; 

To make presbytery supreme, 

And kings themselves submit to them ; 4 1140 



1 The Presbyterians, when in power, by means of their synods, assem- 
blies, classes, scribes, presbyters, triers, orders, censures, curses, &c. &c, 
persecuted the ministers, both of the Independents and of the Church of 
England, with violence and cruelty little short of the Inquisition. 

2 Daniel vii. 5. " And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear ; and 
it raised up itself on one side ; and it had three ribs in the mouth of it, be- 
tween the teeth of it : and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much 
flesh." 

3 The Baiting of the Pope's Bull was the title of a polemic pamphlet 
written against the Pope, by Henry Burton, rector of St Matthew, Friday- 
street, London, 1627- 

4 The Disciplinarians, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, maintained in 



canto in.] nrciBEAS. 123 

And force all people, tho' against 

Their consciences, to turn saints ; 

Must prove a pretty thriving trade, 

"When saints monopolists are made : 

"When pious frauds, and holy shifts, 1145 

Are dispensations and gifts ; 

There godliness becomes mere ware, 

And ev'ry synod but a fair. 

Synods are whelps o' th' Inquisition, 
A mungrel breed of like pernieion, 1 1155 

And growing up, became the sires 
Of scribes, commissioners, and triers ; 2 

their book, called Eccclesiastical Discipline, that kings ought to be subject 
to ecclesiastical censures, as well as other persons. This doctrine was re- 
vived by the Presbyterians, and actually put in practice by the Scots, in 
their treatment of Charles II. The Presbyterians, in the civil war, main- 
tained "that princes must submit their sceptres, and throw down their 
crowns before the church, yea, lick the dust off the feet of the church ; " and 
Buchanan, in his famous" "De Jure Eegni apud Scotos," asserted, that 
" ministers may excommunicate princes, and that they, being by excom- 
munication cast into hell, are not worthy to enjoy any life upon earth." 

1 The word pernieion appears to have been coined by our author from 
the Latin pemicies, and means destructive effect. It is given in Webster's 
Dictionary. 

2 The Presbyterians had a set of officers called Triers, commissioned by 
the two houses, who examined candidates for orders, and presentees to 
benefices, and sifted the qualifications of ruling elders in every congrega- 
tion. See Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy. As the Presbyterians de- 
manded of the Church of England, What command or example have you 
for kneeling at the communion, for wearing a surplice, for lord bishops, 
for a penned liturgy, &c. &c, so the Independents retorted upon them ; 
Where are your lay elders, your presbyters, your classes,- your synods, to 
be found in Scripture? where your steeple-houses, and your national 
church, or your tithes, or your metre psalms, or your two sacraments ? show 
us a command or example for them. See Dr Hammond's View of the Di- 
rectory. The learned Dr Pocock was called before the Triers for ignorance 
and insufficiency of learning, and after an attendance of several months was 
acquitted, and then not on his own merits, but on the remonstrance of a de- 
putation of the most learned men of Oxford, including Dr Owen, who was of 
their own party. This is confirmed by Dr Owen, in a letter to Secretary 
Thurloe. " One thing," says he, "I must needs trouble you with : there are 
in Berkshire some men of mean quality and condition, rash, heady, enemies 
of tythes, who are the commissioners for ejecting ministers : they alone 
sit and act, and are at this time casting out, on very slight and trivial pre- 
tences, very worthy men ; one in special they intend next week to eject, 
whose name is Pocock, a man of as unblameable a conversation as any that 
1 know living, and of repute for learning throughout the world, being the 



124 HTJDIBEAS. [part I. 

"Whose bus'ness is, by cunning slight, 

To cast a figure for men's light ; 

To find, in lines of beard and face, 1155 

The physiognomy of grace ; ' 

And by the sound and twang of nose, 

If all be sound within disclose, 

Free from a crack, or flaw of sinning, 

As men try pipkins by the ringing ; 2 1160 

By black caps, underlaid with white, 3 

Give certain guess at inward light ; 

"Which Serjeants at the gospel wear, 4 

To make the sp'ritual calling clear. 

The handkerchief about the neck, 1165 

— Canonical cravat of smeck, 5 

professor of Hebrew and Arabic in our University : so that they exceed- 
ingly exasperate all men, and provoke them to the height." 

1 The Triers pretended to great still in this respect ; and if they disliked 
the face or beard of a man, if he happened to be of a ruddy complexion, or 
cheerful countenance, they would reject him at once. Their questions were 
such as these : When were you converted ? Where did you begin to feel 
the motions of the Spirit ? In what year ? In what month ? On what day ? 
About what hour of the day had you the secret call or motion of the Spirit 
to undertake and labour in the ministry ? &c. &c. And they would try 
whether he had the true whining voice and nasal twang. Dr South, in his 
Sermon, says they were most properly called Cromwell's Inquisition, and 
that, " as the chief pretence of those Triers was to inquire into men's gifts, 
if they found them well gifted in the hand tbey never looked any further." 

The reader (says Nash), may be inclined to think the dispute between the 
Knight and the Squire rather too long. But if he considers that the great 
object of the poem was to expose to scorn and contempt those sectaries and 
pretenders to extraordinary sanctity, who had overturned the constitution 
in Church and State, he will not wonder that the author indulges himself 
in this fine train of wit and humour. 

2 They judged of men's inward grace by his outward complexion. Dr 
Echard says, " If a man had but a little blood in his cheeks, his condition 
was accounted very dangerous, and it was almost an infallible sign of re- 
probation : and I will assure you," he adds, " a very honest man, of a very 
sanguine complexion, if he chance to come by an officious zealot's house, 
might be put in the stocks for only looking fresh in a frosty morning." 

3 Many persons, particularly the dissenters in our poet's time, were fond 
of wearing black caps lined with white. See the print of Baxter, and 
others. 

4 A black coif, worn on the head, is the badge of a serjeant-at-law. 

5 A club or junto, which wrote several books against the king, consisting 
of five Parliamentary holders-forth, namely : Stephen Marshall, Edmund 
Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew JNTewcomen, and Y/illiam Spurstow ; the 



CANTO III.] HUDIBRAS. 125 

From whom the institution came, 

AVhen Church and State they set on name, 

And worn by them as badges then 

Of spiritual warfaring-men, — 1170 

Judge rightly if regeneration 

Be of the newest cut in fashion : 

Sure 'tis an orthodox opinion. 

That grace is founded in dominion. 1 

Great piety consists in pride ; 1175 

To rule is to he sanctified : 

To domineer, and to control, 

Both o'er the body and the soul, 

Is the most perfect discipline 

Of church-ride, and by right divine. 1180 

Bell and the Dragon's chaplains were 

More moderate than those by far : 2 

For they, poor knaves, were glad to cheat. 

To get their wives and children meat ; 

But these will not be fobb'd off so, 1185 

They must have wealth and power too ; 

Or else with blood and desolation, 

They '11 tear it out o' th' heart o' th' nation. 

Sure these themselves from primitive 
And heathen priesthood do derive, 1 1 90 

initials of their names make the word Smectyynmos : and, hy way of dis- 
tinction, they wore handkerchiefs ahout their necks, which afterwards de- 
generated into carnal cravats. Hall, bishop of Exeter, presented a humble 
remonstrance to the high court of parliament, in behalf of liturgy and epis- 
copacy ; which was answered by the junto under the title of The Original 
of Liturgy and Episcopacy, discussed by Smecttmnuus. (See John Mil- 
ton's Apology for Smectymnuus.) They are remarkable also for another 
book, " The King's Cabinet unlocked," in which all the chaste and endearing 
expressions in letters that passed between Charles I. and his Queen are, by 
their painful labours in the Devil's vineyard, turned into ridicule. 

1 The Presbyterians held that those only who possessed grace were en- 
titled to power. 

2 The priests, their wives, and children, feasted upon the provisions of- 
fered to the idol, and pretended that he had devoured them. See the Apo- 
crypha, Bel and the Dragon, v. 15. The great gorbellied idol, called the 
Assembly of Divines (says Overton in his arraignment of Persecution), is not 
ashamed in this time of state necessity, to guzzle down and devour daily 
more at an ordinary meal than would make a feast, for Bell and the Dragon ; 
for, besides their fat benefices forsooth, they must ha ve their four shillings 
a day for setting in constollidation. 



126 HUDIBRAS. [PART I. 

"When butchers were the only clerks, 1 

Elders and presbyters of kirks ; 

"Whose Directory was to kill ; 

And some believe it is so still. 2 

The only diff rence is, that then 1195 

They slaughter' d only beasts, now men. 

For them to sacrifice a bullock, 

Or, now and then, a child to Moloch, 

They count a vile abomination, 

But not to slaughter a whole nation. 1200 

Presbytery does but translate 

The papacy to a free state, 3 

A commonwealth of popery, 

"Where ev'ry village is a see 

As well as Rome, and must maintain 1205 

A tithe-pig metropolitan ; 

"Where ev'ry presbyter and deacon 

Commands the keys for cheese and bacon ; 4 

And ev'ry hamlet's governed 

By's holiness, the church's head, 5 1210 

1 Both in the Heathen and Jewish sacrifices the animal was slaughtered 
by the priests. 

2 A banter on the Directory, or form of service drawn up by the Presby- 
terians, and substituted for the Common Prayer. 

3 The resemblance between Papacy and Presbytery, which is here implied, 
is amusingly set forth by Dean Swift, in his Tale of a Tub, under the 
names of Peter and Jack. 

4 Alluding to the well-known influence which dissenting ministers of all 
sects and denominations exercise over the purses of the female part of their 
flocks. As an illustration, Grey gives the following anecdote : Daniel Bur- 
gess, dining with a gentlewoman of his congregation, and a large uncut 
Gheshire cheese being brought to table, he asked where he should cut it. 
She replied, where you please, Mr Burgess. Upon which he ordered the 
servant in waiting to carry it to his own bouse, for he would cut it there. 

5 The gentlemen of Cheshire sent a remonstrance to the parliament, 
wherein they complained that, instead of having twenty-six bishops, they 
were then governed by a numerous presbytery, amounting, with lay elders 
and others, to 40,000. This government, say they, is purely papal, for 
every minister exercises papal jurisdiction. Dr Grey quotes from Sir John 
Birkenhead revived : 

But never look for health nor peace 

If once presbytery jade us, 
When every priest becomes a pope, 

"When tinkers and sow-gelders 
May, if they can but 'scape the rope, 

Be princes and lay-elders. 



CA>-TO III.] HUDIBKAS. 127 

More haughty and severe in's place 

Thau Gregory and Boniface. 1 

Such church must, surely, be a monster 

"With many heads : for if we conster 2 

"What in th' Apocalypse Ave find, 1215 

According to th' Apostle's mind, 

'Tis that the Whore of Babylon, 

"With many heads, did ride upon ; 3 

"Which heads denote the sinful tribe 

Of deacon, priest, lay-elder, scribe. 12-20 

Lay-elder, Simeon to Levi, 4 
"Whose little finger is as heavy 
As loins of patriarchs, prince-prelate, 
And bishop-secular. 5 This zealot 
Is of a mungrel, diverse kind, 1225 

Cleric before, and lay behind ; G 
A lawless linsey-woolsey brother, 7 
Half of one order, half another ; 

1 Two most insolent and assuming popes, who endeavoured to raise the 
tiara above all the crowned heads in Christendom. Gregory VII., elected 
1073, the son of a Smith, and commonly called Hildebrand, was the first 
pontiff who arrogated to himself the authority to excommunicate and depose 
the emperor. Boniface VIII., elected 1294, one of the most haughty, am- 
bitious, and tyrannical men, that ever filled the papal chair, at the jubilee 
instituted by himself, appeared one day in the habit of a pope, and the 
next in that of an emperor ; and caused two swords to be carried before 
him, to show that he was invested with all power ecclesiastical and temporal. 
TValsingham says that " he crept into the papacy like a fox, ruled like a 
lion, and died like a dog." 2 Meaning " construe." 

3 The Church of Rome has often been compared to the whore of Baby- 
lon. The beast which the whore rode upon is here said to signify the 
Presbyterian establishment : and the seven, or many heads of the beast, are 
interpreted, by the poet, to mean their several officers, deacons, priests, 
scribes, lay-elders, &c. 

4 That is, lay-elder, an associate to the priesthood, for interested, if not 
for iniquitous purposes. Alluding to Genesis xlix. 5, 6. "Simeon and 
Levi are brethren ; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations : my 
soul, come not thou into their secret ; unto their assembly, mine honour, 
be not thou united ; for in their anger they slew a man." 

5 Such were formerly several of the bishops in Germany. 

6 Sir Roger L'Estrange, in his key to Iludibras, tells us that one Andrew 
Crawford, a Scotch preacher, is here intended ; others say William Dunning, 
a Scotch presbyter of a turbulent and restless spirit, diligent in promoting 
the cause of the kirk. But, probably, the author meant no more than to 
give a general picture of the lay-elders. 

7 It was forbidden by the Levitical law to wear a mixture of linen and 
woollen in the same garment. 



128 HTTDIBBAS. [PAET I. 

A creature of amphibious nature, 

On land a beast, a fish in water : 1230 

That always preys on grace or sin ; 

A sheep without, a wolf within. 

This fierce inquisitor has chief 

Dominion over men's belief 

And manners ; can pronounce a saint 1235 

Idolatrous, or ignorant, 

When superciliously he sifts, 

Through coarsest bolter, others' gifts. 1 

For all men live and judge amiss, 

"Whose talents jump not just with his. 1240 

He'll lay on gifts with hand, and place 

On dullest noddle light and grace, 

The manufacture of the kirk, 

"Whose pastors are but th' handiwork 

Of his mechanic paws, instilling 1245 

Divinity in them by feeling. 

From whence they start up chosen vessels, 

Made by contact, as men get measles. 

So cardinals, they say, do grope 

At th' other end the new-made pope. 2 1250 

Hold, hold, quoth Hudibras, soft fire, 
They say, does make sweet malt. Good Squire, 
Ifestina lente, not too fast ; 
For haste, the provei'b says, makes waste. 
The quirks and cavils thou dost make 1255 

Axe false, and built upon mistake : 
And I shall bring you, with your pack 
Of fallacies, t' Elenchi back ; 3 
And put your arguments in mood 
And figure to be understood. 1260 

I'll force you by right ratiocination 
To leave your vitilitigation. 4 

1 A bolter is a coarse sieve for separating bran from flour. 

2 Tbis alludes to tbe stercorary cbair, used at tbe installations of some of 
fbe popes, and wbicb, being perforated at tbe bottom, has given rise to the 
assertion that, to prevent the recurrence of a Pope Joan, the Pontiff elect is 
always examined through it by the youngest deacon. 

3 Elenchi are arguments which deceive under an appearance of truth. 
The Elenchus, says Aldrich, is properly a syllogism which refutes an oppo- 
nent by establishing that which contradicts his opinion, 

4 That is, a perverse humour of wrangling, or, " contentious Litigation." 



CANTO III.] HUDIBKAS. 129 

And make you keep to the question close, 
And argue dialeeticos. 1 

The question then, to state it first, 1265 

Is, which is better, or which worst, 
Synods or bears. Bears I avow 
To be the worst, and synoda thin. 
But, to make good th' assertion, 

Thou say'st th' are really all one. 1270 

If so, not worst ; for if th' are idem, 2 
"Why then, tantundem dat tantidem. 
For if they are the same, by course 
Neither is better, neither worse. 
But I deny they are the same, 1275 

More than a maggot and I am. 
That both are animalia 3 
I grant, but not rationalia: 
Tor though they do agree in kind, 
Specific difference we find ; 4 1280 

And can no more make bears of these, 
Than prove my horse is Socrates. 5 
That synods are bear-gardens too, 
Thou dost affirm ; but I say, No : 
And thus I prove it, in a word, 12S5 

"Whats'ever assembly's not impowVd 
To censure, curse, absolve, and ordain, 
Can be no synod : but bear-garden 

1 That is, dialectically, or logically. 

2 These are technical terms of school-logic. 

2 Suppose (says Nash) to make out the metre, we read : 
That both indeed are animalia. 
The editor of 1819 proposes to read of them in place of indeed. But it was 
probably intended in the next line to ellipse rationalia into rat'nalia 
(pronounced rashnalia). 

4 Between animate and inanimate things, as between a man and a tree, 
there is a generic difference, that is, one "in kind^ " between rational and 
sensitive creatures, as a man and a bear, there is a specific difference ; for 
though they agree in the genus of animals, or living creatures, yet they 
differ in the species as to reason. Between two men, Plato and Socrates, 
there is a numerical difference ; for, though they are of the same species as 
rational creatures, yet they are not one and the same, but two men. See 
Part ii. Canto i. 1. 150. 

1 Or that my horse is a man. Aristotle, in his disputations, uses the word 
Socrates as an appellative for man in general ; from him it was taken up in 
the schools. 



130 HUDIBKAS. [PART I. 

Has no such power, ergo 'tis none ; 

And so thy sophistry's o'erthrown. 1290 

But yet we are beside the question 
Which thou didst raise the first contest on : 
Eor that was, "Whether hears are better 
Than synod-men ? I say, JS"egatur. 
That bears are beasts, and synods men, 1295 

Is held by all : they're better then, 
For bears and dogs on four legs go, 
As beasts ; but synod-men on two. 
'Tis true, they all have teeth and nails ; 
But prove that synod-men have tails : 1.300 

Or that a rugged, shaggy fur 
Grrows o'er the hide of presbyter ; 
Or that his snout and spacious ears 
Do hold proportion with a bear's. 
A bear's a savage beast, of all 1305 

Most ugly and unnatural, 
"Whelp' d without form, until the dam 
Has lickt it into shape and frame : l 
But all thy light can ne'er evict, 
That ever synod-man was lickt, 1310 

Or brought to any other fashion 
Than his own will and inclination. 
But thou dost further yet in this 
Oppugn thyself and sense ; that is, 
Thou would' st have presbyters to go 1315 

For bears and dogs, and bearwards too ; 
A strange chimsera 2 of beasts and men, 
Made up of pieces het'rogene ; 
Such as in nature never met, 
In eodem subjecto yet. 1320 

1 It -was in Butler's time, and long afterwards, a popular notion that the 
cubs of the hear were mere " lumps of flesh," until fashioned by the tongue 
of their dam. See Ovid's Metam. XV. ; Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 36 (Bonn's 
Edit. vol. ii. p. 305). It is alluded to in Pope's Dunciad, i. 99, 100 : 

So watchful Bruin forms, with plastic care, 
Each growing lump, and brings it to a bear. 

2 Alluding to the fable of Chimsera in Ovid's Metamorphoses, book IX. : 

and where Chinuera raves 

On craggy rocks, with lion's face and mane, 
A goat's rough body, and a serpent's train. 
Described also by Homer, Iliad, vi. 180. 



CA>"TO III.] JIUDIEEAS. ]31 

Thy other arguments are all 
Supposures hypothetical, 
That clo but beg ; and we may chuse 
Either to grant them, or refuse. 

Much thou hast said, which I know when, 1325 

And where thou stol'st from other men ; 
Whereby 'tis plain thy light and gifts 
Are all but plagiary shifts ; 
And is the same that Banter said, 
Who, arguing with me, broke my head, 1 1330 

And tore a handful of my beard ; 
The self-same cavils then I heard, 
When b'ing in hot dispute about 
This controversy, we fell out ; 

And what thou know'st I answer 'd then 1335 

Will serve to answer thee agen. 

Quoth Ealpho, Nothing but th' abuse 
Of human learning you produce ; 
Learning, that cobweb of the brain, 
Profane, erroneous, and vain ; 2 13-i ) 

1 The Eanters were a vile sect, that denied all the doctrines of religion, 
natural and revealed, and believed sin and vice to be the whole duty of man. 
They held, says Alexander Ross, that God, Devil, Angels, Heaven, and Hell, 
were fictions ; that Moses, John the Baptist, and Christ, were impostors, and 
that preaching was but public lying. "With one of these the knight had 
entered into a dispute, and at last came to blows. Whitelocke says that the 
soldiers in the parliament army were frequently punished for being Eanters. 

2 The Independents and Anabaptists were great enemies to all human 
learning : they thought that preaching, and everything else, was to come 
by inspiration. Dr South says: "Latin unto them was a mortal crime, 
and Greek looked upon as a sin against the Holy Ghost. All learning 
was then cried down, so that with them the best preachers were such 
as could not read, and the ablest divines such as could not write. In 
all their preachments they so highly pretended to the spirit, that they 
hardly could spell the letter." We are told in the Mercurius Rtisticus, 
that the tinkers and tailors who governed Chelmsford at the beginning 
of the Rebellion, asserted " that learning had always been an enemy to 
the gospel, and that it would be a happy state if there were no uni- 
versities, and all books were burnt except the Bible." Their enmity to 
learning is well satirized by Shakspeare, who makes Jack Cade say when 
he ordered Lord Say's head to be struck off: "I am the besom that must 
sweep the court clean of such filth as thou art. Thou has most traitorously 
corrupted the youth of the realm, in erecting a grammar school ; and where- 
as, before, our forefathers had no other books, but the score and the tally, 
thou hast caused printing to be used ; and, contrary to the king, his crown 

k2 



132 HUDIBRAS. [PACT T. 

A trade of knowledge as replete, 

As others are with fraud and cheat ; 

An art t' incumber gifts and wit, 

And render both for nothing fit ; 

Makes light unactive, dull and troubled, 1345 

Like little David in Saul's doublet : ' 

A cheat that scholars put upon 

Other men's reason and their own ; 

A fort of error to ensconce 

Absurdity and ignorance, 1350 

That renders all the avenues 

To truth impervious, and abstruse, 

By making plain things, in debate, 

By art perplex' d, and intricate : 

For nothing goes for sense or light 1355 

That will not with old rules jump right, 

As if rules were not in the schools 

Deriv'd from truth, but truth from rules. 2 

This pagan, heatbenish invention 
Is good for nothing but contention. 1360 

For as in sword-and-buckler fight, 
All blows do on the target light ; 
So when men argue, the greatest part 
0' th' contest falls on terms of art, 
Until the fustian stuff be spent, 1365 

And then they fall to th' argument. 

Quoth Hudibras, Friend B.alph, thou hast 
Out-run the constable at last ; 
For thou art fallen on a new 

Dispute, as senseless as untrue, 1370 

But to the former opposite,- 
And contrary as black to white ; 

and dignity, thou hast built a paper-mill. It will be proved to thy face, 
that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and a verb ; and 
such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear." Henry VI. 
Part II. Act iv. sc. 7. 

1 See 1 Samuel xvii. 38. 

2 Bishop Warburton, in a note on these lines, says : " This observation is 
just, the logicians have run into strauge absurdities of this kind : Peter 
Ramus, the best of them, in his Logic, rejects a very just argument of Ci-. 
cero's as sophistical, because it did not jump right with his rules." 



CANTO III.] 



nUDIBKAS. 



133 



Mere disparata, x that concerning 

Presbytery, this human learning ; 

Two things s' averse, they never yet, 

But in thy rambling fancy, met. 2 

But I shall take a fit occasion 

T evince thee by ratiocination, 

Some other time, in place more proper 

Than this w' are in : therefore let's stop here, 

And rest our weary 'd bones awhile, 

Already tir'd with other toil. 



1380 



• ^ m S S S l dlfferen * f rom each ot ter, that they cannot he compared. 
- I he Presbytery of those times had little learning among them, though 
many made pretences to it; but, seeing all their boasted arguments and 

f^T'/^T 61 ; they ^ lffered from the Church of En-land, controverted 
and baffled by the learned divines of that Church, they found that without 
more learning they should not maintain their ground. Therefore, about the 
time_ of the Revolution, they began to think it very necessary, instead of 
Cabins Institutes, ana a Dutch System or two, to help them to arguments 
against Episcopacy, to study more polite books. It is certain that dissent- 
ing ministers, since that time, have both preached and written more learn- 
edly and politely. 






ARGUMENT. 

The Knight being clapp'd by th' heels in prison, 

The last unhappy expedition, 1 

Love brings his action on the case, 2 

And lays it upon Hudibras. 

How he receives 3 the lady's visit, 

And cunningly solicits his suit, 

Which she defers : yet, on parole, 

Ee deems him from th' enchanted hole. 



1 In the editions previous to 1674, the lines stand thus : 

The knight, by damnable magician, 
Being cast illegally in prison. 

2 An action on the case, is an action for redress of wrongs and injuries, 
done without force, and not specially provided against by law. 

3 The first editions read revi's. To revie means to cover a sum put down 
upon a hand at cards with a larger sum ; also to retort or recriminate. 
See "Wright's Provincial Dictionary. 



PART II. CAXTO I. 



5=5j^ ITT now, t' observe romantique method,' 
Let bloody ' 2 steel awhile be sheathed ; 

■^Pf?} And all tliose harsh and rugged sounds 3 

mmM ^ bastinadoes, cuts, and wounds, 
^-' S^Z r Exehang'd to love's more gentle style, 5 
To let our reader breathe awhile : 4 
In which, that we may be as brief as 
Is possible, by way of preface. 

Is't not enough to make one strange, 5 
That some men's fancies 6 should ne'er change, 10 
But make all people do and say 
The same things still the self-same way ? 
Some writers make all ladies purloin'd, 
And knights pursuing like a whirlwind : 7 
Others make all their knights, in fits 15 

Of jealousy, to lose their wits ; 

• The abrupt opening of this Canto is designed ; being in imitation 
of the commen cement of the fourth book of the iEneid, 

"At regina gravijam dudum saucia cura," &c. 

2 Var. rusty steel in 1674 — 84, and trusty in 1700. Restored to bloody 
steel in 1704. 

3 In like manner Shakspeare, Richard III. Act i. sc. 1, says : 

" Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings, 
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures." 

For this and the three previous lines, the first edition has : 

And unto love turn we our style 

To let our reader breathe awhile, 

By this time tir'd with th' horrid sounds 

Of blows, and cuts, and blood, and wounds. 

s That is, to make one wonder. 
8 Var. That a man's fancy. 

7 Alluding, probably, to Don Quixote's account of the enchanted Dul- 
cineas, flying from him, like a whirlwind, in Montesiuo's Cave. 



136 HTLDIBEAS. [PART II. 

Till drawing blood o' th' dames, like witches, 

They're forthwith cur'd of their capriches. 1 

Some always thrive in their amours, 

By pulling plasters off their sores ;' 2 20 

As cripples do to get an alms, 

Just so do they, and win their dames. 

Some force whole regions, in despite 

O' geography, to change their site ; 

Make former times shake hands with latter, 25 

And that which was before, come after ; 3 

But those that write in rhyme still make 

The one verse for the other's sake ; 

For one for sense, and one for rhyme, 

I think' s sufficient at one time. 30 

But we forget in what sad plight 
"We whilom 4 left the captiv'd Knight 
And pensive Squire, both bruis'd in body 
And conjur'd into safe custody. 

Tir'd with dispute and speaking Latin, 35 

As well as basting and bear-baiting, 
And desperate of any course 
To free himself by wit or force, 
His only solace was, that now 
His dog-bolt 5 fortune was so low, 40 

1 It was a vulgar notion that if you drew blood from a witch, she could 
not hurt you. Thus Cleveland, in his Eebel Scot : 

Scots are like witches ; do but whet your pen, 
Scratch till the blood comes, they'll not hurt you then. 
See also Shakspeare, Henry VI. Part I. A*ct i. sc. 5. 

2 By showing their wounds to the ladies, who, it must remembered, in 
the times of chivalry, were instructed in surgery and the healing art. In 
the romance of Perceforest, a young lady sets the dislocated arm of a 
knight. 

3 A banter on these common faults of romance writers : even Shakspeare 
and Virgil have not wholly avoided them. The former transports his cha- 
racters, in a quarter of an hour, from France to England : the latter has 
formed an intrigue between Dido and iEneas, who probably lived in very 
distant periods. The Spanish writers are rebuked for these violations of the 
unities in Don Quixote, ch. 21, where the canon speaks of having seen a play 
" in which the first act begins in Europe, the second in Asia, and the third 
in Africa." 

4 Var. Lately. 

5 In English, dog, in composition, like 5vg in Greek, implies that the 



cxyjo I.] HTJDIBKAS. 137 

That either it must quickly end 
Or turn about again, and mend: 1 
In whicn he found the event, no less 
Than other times, beside his guess. 

There is a tall long-sided dame, — 2 4-5 

But wond'rous light — ycleped Fame, 
That like a thin chameleon boards 
Herself on air, 3 and eats her words ; 4 
Upon her shoulders wings she wears 
Like hanging sleeves, lin'd thro' with ears, 60 

And eyes, and tongues, as poets list, 
Made good by deep mythologist. 
With these she thro' the welkin flies, 5 
And sometimes carries truth, oft lies ; 
With letters hung, like eastern pigeons, 6 55 

And Mercuries of furthest regions ; 

thing denoted by the noun annexed to it is vile, bad, savage, or un- 
fortunate in its kind : thus dog-rose, dog-latin, dog-trick, dog-cheap, and 
many others. Wright, in his Glossary, explains dog-bolt as a term of re- 
proach, and gives quotation from Ben Jonson and Shadwell to that effect. 
The happiest illustration of the text is afforded in Beaumont and Fletcher's 
Spanish Curate : 

" For, to say truth, the lawyer is a dog-bolt, 
An arrant worm." 

1 It was a maxim among the Stoic philosophers that things which were 
violent could not be lasting : Si longa est, levis est ; si gravis est, brevis est. 

2 Our author has evidently followed Virgil (iEneid. iv.) in some parts of 
this description of Fame. 

3 The vulgar notion is, that chameleons live on air, but they are known 
to feed on flies, caterpillars, and other insects. See Brown's Vulgar Errors, 
book iii. ch. 21. 

4 The beauty of this simile, says Mr Warburton, "consists in the 
double meaning : the first alluding to Fame's living on report ; the second 
implying that a report, if narrowly inquired into and traced up to the 
original author, is made to contradict itself." 

5 Welkin is derived from the Anglo-Saxon wolc, wolcn, clouds, and is 
generally used by the English poets to denote the sky or visible region of 
the air. 

15 The pigeons of Aleppo served as couriers. They were taken from their 
young ones, and conveyed to distant places in open cages, and when it be- 
came necessary to send home any intelligence, one was let loose, with a billet 
tied to her foot, when she flew back with great swiftness. They would 
return in less than ten hours from Alexandretto to Aleppo, and in two days 
from Bagdad. This method was practised at Mutina, when besieged by 
Antony. See Pliny's Natural History, lib. x. 37. 



138 HUDIBEAS. [PAET II. 

.Diurnals writ for regulation 

Of lying, to inform the nation, 1 

And by their public use to bring down 

The rate of whetstones in the kingdom. 2 GO 

About her neck a packet-mail, 

Fraught with advice, some fresh, some stale, 

Of men that walk'd when they were dead, 

And cows of monsters brought to bed : 3 

Of hail-stones big as pullets' eggs, 65 

And puppies whelp'd with twice two legs : 4 

A blazing star seen in the west, 

By six or seven men at least. 

Two trumpets she does sound at once, 5 

But both of clean contrary tones ; 70 

But whether both with the same wind, 

Or one before, and one behind, 

We know not, only this can tell, 

The one sounds vilely, th' other well ; 

And therefore vulgar authors name 75 

Th' one G-ood, th' other Evil Fame. 



1 The newspapers of those times, called Mercuries and Diurnals, were 
characterised by many of the contemporary writers as lying journals. Each 
party had its Mercuries : there was Mercurius Rusticus, and Mercurius 
Aulicus. 

2 - Whetstone is a proverbial term, denoting an excitement to lying, or a 
subject that gave a man an opportunity of whetting his wit upon another. 
See Ray, in Handbook of Proverbs, p. 60. Thus Shakspeare makes Celia 
reply to Rosalind upon the entry of the Clown : " Fortune hath sent 
this natural for our whetstone ; for always the dulness of the fool is the 
whetstone of the wits." Lying for the whetstone appears to have been a 
jocular custom. In Lupton's "Too good to be true" occur these lines : 
" Omen. And what shall he gain that gets the victory in lying ? Syilla. 
He shall have a silver whetstone for his labours." See a full account in 
Brand's Popular Antiquities (Bohn's edit.), vol. hi. p. 389 — 393. 

3 Some stories of the kind are found in Morton's History of Northamp- 
tonshire, p. 447 ; Knox's History of the Reformation in Scotland ; and Phi- 
losophical Transactions, xxvi. p. 310. 

4 To make this story as wonderful as the rest, we ought to read thrice 
two, or twice four legs. 

5 Chaucer makes iEolus, an attendant on Fame, blow the clarion of laud, 
and the clarion of slander, alternately, according to her directions ; and in 
Pope's Temple of Fame, she has the trumpet of eternal praise, and the 
trumpet of slander. 



CAXTO I.] HUDIBEAS. 139 

This tattling l gossip knew too well, 
What mischief Hudibras befell ; 
And straight the spiteful tidings bear3, 
Of all, to th' unkind widow's ears. 80 

Demoeritus ne'er laugh'd so loud, 2 
To see bawds carted through the crowd, 
Or funerals with stately pomp, 
March slowly on in solemn dump, 
As she laugh'd out, until her back, 85 

As well as sides, was like to crack. 
She vow'd she would go see the sight, 
And visit the distressed Knight, 
To do the office of a neighbour, 

And be a gossip at his labour ; 3 90 

And from his wooden jail, the stocks, 4 
To set at large his fetter-locks, 
And by exchange, parole, or ransom, 
To free him from th' enchanted mansion. 
This b'ing resolv'd, she call'd for hood 95 

And usher, implements abroad 5 
"Which ladies wear, beside a slender 
Toung waiting damsel to attend her. 
All which appearing, on she went 
To find the Knight in limbo pent. loo 

And 'twas not long before she found 
Him, and his stout Squire, in the pound ; 
Both coupled in enchanted tether, 
By further leg behind together : 

1 Var. "Twattling gossip," in the two first editions. 

2 Demoeritus was the "laughing philosopher." He regarded the com- 
mon cares and pursuits of men as simply ridiculous, and ridiculed thern ac- 
cordingly. 

3 Gossip, from God sib ; that is, sib, or related by means of religion ; a 
god-father or sponsor at baptism. 

* The original reading of this and the following line explains the meaning 
of the preceding one. In the two editions of 1664, they stand : 
That is, to see him deliver' d safe 
Of 's wooden burthen, and Squire Ralph. 

5 Some have doubted whether the word usher means an attendant, or 
part of her dress; but from Part III., Canto II., line 399, it is plain that 
-it signifies the former. 



140, HUDIBEAS. [PAET II. 

For as lie sat upon his rump, 105 

His head like one in doleful dump, 1 

Between his knees, his hands applied 

Unto his ears on either side, 

And by him, in another hole, 

Afflicted Ealpho, cheek by joul, 2 110 

She came upon him in his wooden 

Magician's circle, on the sudden. 

As spirits do t' a conjurer, 

When in their dreadful' st shapes th' appear. 

No sooner did the Knight perceive her, 115 

But straight he fell into a fever, 
Inflam'd all over with disgrace, 
To b' seen by her in such a place ; 
"Which made him hang his head, and scowl 
And wink and goggle like an owl ; 120 

He felt his brains begin to swim, 
When thus the Dame accosted him : 

This place, quoth she, they say's enchanted, 
And with delinquent spirits haunted ; 
That here are tied in chains, and scourg'd, 125 

Until their guilty crimes be purg'd : 
Look, there are two of them appear 
Like persons I have seen somewhere : 
Some have mistaken blocks and posts 
For spectres, apparitions, ghosts, 130 

"With saucer-eyes and horns ; and some 
Have heard the devil beat a drum : 3 
But if our eyes are not false glasses, 
That give a wrong account of faces, 
That beard and I should be acquainted, 135 

Before 'twas conjur'd and enchanted. 
For though it be disfigur'd somewhat, 
As if 't had lately been in combat, 

1 See above, Part I., Canto II., line 95, and note. 

2 That is, cheek to cheek : derived from two Anglo-Saxon words, ceac, 
and ceole. See Jig by jowl in "Wright's Glossary. 

3 The story of Mr Mompesson's house being haunted by a drummer, 
made a great noise about the time our author wrote. The narrative is told 
in Glanvil on Witchcraft. 



CANTO I.] HTTDIBBAS. Ill 

It did belong t' a worthy Knight, 

Howe'er this goblin is come by't. l io 

AVhen Hudibras the lady heard, 
Discoursing thus upon his beard. 1 
And speak with such respect and honour, 
Both of the beard and the beard's owner, 2 
He thought it best to set as good 145 

A face upon it as he could, 
And thus he spoke : Lady, your bright 
And radiant eyes are in the right ; 
The beard's th' identique beard you knew, 
The same numerically true : 150 

]S T or is it worn by fiend or elf, 
But its proprietor himself. 

O heavens ! quoth she, can that be true ? 
I do begin to fear 'tis you ; 

Not by your individual whiskers, 155 

But by you dialect and discourse, 
That never spoke to man or beast, 
In notions vulgarly exprest : 
But what malignant star, alas ! 
Has brought you both to this sad pass ? 160 

Quoth he, The fortune of the war, 
T\ r hich I am less afflicted for, 

1 Var. To take kind notice of his beard. The clergy in the middle ages 
threatened to excommunicate the Knights who persisted in -wearing their 
beards, because their clipped chins, "like stubble land at harvest home," 
made them disagreeable to their ladies. 

2 See the dignity of the beard maintained by Dr Bulwer in his Artificial 
Changeling, p. 196. He says, shaving the chin is justly to be accounted a 
note of effeminacy, as appears by eunuchs, who produce not a beard, the 
sign of virility. Alexander and his officers did not shave their beards till 
they were effeminated by Persian luxury. It was late before barbers were 
in request at Rome : they first came from Sicily 454 years after tbe founda- 
tion of Rome. Varro tells us, they were introduced by Ticinius Mena. 
Scipio Africanus was the first who shaved his face every day : the emperor 
Augustus used this practice. See Pliny's Nat. Hist. b. vii. c. 56. Di- 
ogenes, seeing one with a smooth-shaved chin, said to him, " Hast thou 
whereof to accuse nature for making thee a man and not a woman?" — 
The Rhodians and Byzantines, contrary to the practice of modern Russians, 
persisted against their laws and edicts in shaving and the use of the razor, 
— TJlmus, in his de fine barbce humance, is of opinion that nature gave to 
mankind a beard, that it might remain as an index of the masculine 
generative faculty. — Beard-haters are by Barclay clapped on board the 
ship of fools. 



142 HTTDIBBAS. [PAET II 

Than to be seen with beard and face 
By you in such a homely case. 1 

Quoth she, Those need not be asham'd 165 

For being honourably maim'd ; 
If he that is in battle conquer' d 
Have any title to his own beard, 
Tho' yours be sorely lugg'd and torn, 
It does your visage more adorn 170 

Than if 'twere prun'd, and starch'd, and lander'd, 2 
And cut square by the Russian standard. 3 
A torn beard's like a tatter'd ensign, 
That's bravest which there are most rents in. 
That petticoat, about your shoulders, 175 

Does not so well become a soldier's ; 
And I'm afraid they are worse handled, 
Altho' i' th' rear your beard the van led ; 4 
And those uneasy bruises make 

My heart for company to ache, 180 

To see so worshipful a friend 
I' th' pillory set, at the wrong end. 

Quoth Hudibras, This thing call'd pain, 5 
Is, as the learned Stoics maintain, 
Wot bad simpliciter, nor good, 185 

But merely as 'tis understood. 

1 Var. "Elenctique case," in the first editions. 

2 From the French word lave?idier, a washer. Wright's Glossary. 

3 Peter the Great of Russia had great difficulty in obliging his subjects 
to cut off their beards, and imposed a tax on them according to a given 
standard. The beaux in the reigns of James I. and Charles I. spent as 
much time in dressing their beards as modern beaux do in dressing their 
hair ; and many kept a person to read to him while the operation was 
performing. See John Taylor, the water poet's Superbice Flagellum 
("Works, p. 3), for a droll account of the fashions of the beard in his time. 
Bottom, the weaver, was a connoisseur in beards (Mids. Night's Dream, 
Act i. sc. 2). 

* The van is the front or fore part of an army, and commonly the post 
of danger and honour; the rear the hinder part. So that making a 
front in the rear must be retreating from the enemy. By this comical ex- 
pression the lady signifies that he turned tail on them, by which means his 
shoulders fared worse than his beard. 

«_ 5 Some tenets of the Stoic philosophers are here burlesqued with great 
humour. 



CANTO I.] EXDIBBAS. 14.1 

Sense is deceitful, and may feign 

As well in counterfeiting pain 

As other gross phenomenas, 

In which it oft mistakes the case. 190 

But since th' immortal intellect, 

That's free from error and defect, 

"Whose objects still persist the same, 

Is free from outward bruise or maim, 

Which nought external can expose 195 

To gross material bangs or blows, 

It follows Ave can ne'er be sure 

Whether we pain or not endure ; 

And just so far are sore and griev'd, 

As by the fancy is believ'd. 200 

Some have been wounded with conceit, 

And died of mere opinion straight ; ' 

Others, tho' wounded sore, in reason 

Felt no contusion, nor discretion. 2 

A Saxon Duke did grow so fat, 205 

That mice, as histories relate, 

Ate grots and labyrinths to dwell in 

His postique parts, without his feeling ; 3 

Then how is't possible a kick 

Should e'er reach that way to the quick ? 210 

Quoth she, I grant it is in vain, 
For one that's basted to feel pain ; 

1 That is, died of fear. Several stories to this effect are upon record; one 
of the most remarkable is the case of the Chevalier Jarre, " who was upon 
the scaffold at Troyes, had his hair cut off, the handkerchief before his eyes, 
and the sword in the executioner's hand to cut off his head; but the king 
pardoned him : being taken up, his fear had so taken hold of him, that he 
could not stand or speak : they led him to bed, and opened a vein, but no 
blood would come." Lord Strafford's Letters, vol. i. p. 166. 

2 According to the punctuation, it signifies, others, though really and 
sorely wounded (see the Lady's Reply, line 211), felt no bruise or cut: but 
if we put a semicolon after sore, and no stop after reason, the meaning 
may be, others, though wounded sore in body, yet in mind or imagination 
felt no bruise or cut. Discretion here signifies a cut, or separation of parts. 

3 He argues from this story, that if a man could be so gnaAved and man- 
gled without feeling it, a kick in the same place would not inflict much 
hurt. The note in the old editions, attributed to Butler himself, cites 
the Rhine legend of Bishop Hatto, " who was quite eaten up by rats and 
mice," as much more strange. 



144 HTTDIBEAS. [PAET II. 

Because the pangs his bones endure, 

Contribute nothing to the cure ; 

Yet honour hurt, is wont to rage 215 

With pain no med'cine can assuage. 

Quoth he, That honour's very squeamish 
That takes a basting for a blemish : 
For what's more honourable than scars, 
Or skin to tatters rent in wars ? 220 

Some have been beaten till they know 
What wood a cudgel's of by th' blow ; 
Some kick'd, until they can feel whether 
A shoe be Spanish or neat's leather: 
And yet have met, after long running, 225 

With some whom they have taught that cunning. 
The furthest way about, t' o'ercome, 
I' th' end does prove the nearest home. 
By laws of learned duellists, 

They that are bruis'd with wood or fists, 230 

And think one beating may for once 
Suffice, are cowards and poltroons : 
But if they dare engage t' a second, 
They're stout and gallant fellows reckon'd. 

Th' old Romans freedom did bestow, 235 

Our princes worship, with a blow : l 
King Pyrrhus cur'd his splenetic 
And testy courtiers with a kick. 2 
The Negus, 3 when some mighty lord 
Or potentate's to be restor'd, 240 

1 One form of declaring a slave free, at Pome, was for the prjetor, in the 
presence of certain persons, to give the slave a light stroke with a small 
stick, from its use called vindicta. See Horat. Sat. ii. 7, 75, and Persius, 
v. 88. Sometimes freedom was given by an alapa, or blow with the open 
hand upon the face or head. Pers. v. 75, 78. 

2 Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, had this occult quality in his toe. It was 
believed he could cure the spleen by sacrificing a white cock, and with 
his right foot gently pressing the spleen of the person affected. Nor 
was any man so poor and inconsiderable as not to receive the benefit of his 
royal touch, if he desired it. The toe of that foot was said to have so 
divine a virtue, that after his death, the rest of his body being consumed, 
it was found untouched by the fire. See Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus, and 
Pliny's Nat. Hist. vol. ii. p. 128 (Bohn). 

3 Negus was the title of the king of Abyssinia. 



CANTO I.] HUDIBBAS. l-i6 

And pardon' d for some great offence,' 

"With which he's willing to dispense, 

First has him laid upon his belly, 

Then beaten back and side t' a jelly ; 2 

That done, he rises, humbly bows, 2-i& 

And gives thanks for the princely blows ; 

Departs not meanly proud, and boasting 

Of his magnificent rib-roasting. 

The beaten soldier proves most manful, 

That, like bis sword, endures the anvil, 250 

And justly 's held more formidable, 

The more his valour's malleable : 

But he that fears a bastinado, 

"Will run away from his own shadow : 3 

And though I'm now in durance fast, 255 

By our own party basely cast, 4 

Ransom, exchange, parole, refus'd, 

And worse than by the en'my us'd ; 

In close catasta 5 shut, past hope 

Of wit or valour to elope ; 260 

As beards, the nearer that they tend 

To th' earth, still grow more reverend ; 

And cannons shoot the higher pitches, 

The lower we let down their breeches ; 6 

I'll make this low dejected fate 265 

Advance me to a greater height. 

Quoth she, Y' have almost made m' in love 
"With that which did my pity move. 

1 In the editions of 1664, this and the following line read thus : 

"To his good grace, for some offence 
Forfeit before, and pardon'd since." 

2 This story is told in Le Blanc's Travels, Part ii. ch. 4. 

s The fury of Bucephalus proceeded from the fear of his own shadow. 
See Rabelais, vol. i. c. 14. 

4 This was the chief complaint of the Presbyterians and Parliamentary 
party, when the Independents and the army ousted them from their mis 
used supremacy; and it led to their negotiations with the King, their 
espousal of the cause of his son, and ultimately to his restoration as Charle? 
ihe Second. 

s A cage or prison wherein the Romans exposed 6laves for sale. See 
Persius, vi. 76. 

6 See note 2 , p. 39, supra. 

1 



146 HTJDIBBAS. [PABT II. 

Great wits and valours, like great states, 

Do sometimes sink with their own weights : I 270 

Th' extremes of glory and of shame, 

Like east and west, become the same. 2 

No Indian Prince has to his palace 

More followers than a thief to the gallows. 

But if a beating seems so brave, 275 

"What glories must a whipping have ? 

Such great achievements cannot fail 

To cast salt on a woman's tail : 3 

For if I thought your nat'ral talent 

Of passive courage were so gallant, 280 

As you strain hard to have it thought, 

I could grow amorous, and dote. 

When Hudibras this language heard, 
He prick'd up's ears, and strok'd his beard; 
Thought he, this is the lucky hour, 285 

Wines work when vines are in the flower : 4 
This crisis then I'll set my rest on, 5 
And put her boldly to the question. 

Madam, What you would seem to doubt 
Shall be to all the world made out, 29C 

How I've been drubb'd, and with what spirit 
And magnanimity I bear it ; 
And if you doubt it to be true, 
I'll stake myself down against you : 
And if I fail in love or troth, 295 

Be you the winner, and take both. 



1 Thus Horace (Ep. xvi.) said that Rome was falling through the excess 
of its power. 

3 That is, glory and shame, which though opposite as east and west, 
sometimes become the same ; exemplifying the proverb : " Extremes meet." 

3 Alluding to the common saying : — You will catch the bird if you throw 
salt on his tail. 

4 A proverbial expression for the fairest and best opportunity of doing 
anything. It was the common belief of brewers, distillers of gin, and 
vinegar -makers, that their liquors fermented best when the plants used in 
them were in flower. (See Sir Kenelm Digby's " Discourse concerning the 
Cure of Wounds by Sympathy," p. 79.) Hudibras compares himself to the 
vine in flower, for he thinks he has set the widow fermenting. 

5 Crisis is used here in the classical sense of "judgment" or " decision 
of a question." 



CA.XTO I.] HUDIBBAS. 147 

Quoth, she, I've heard old cunning stagers 
Say, fools for arguments use wagers. 
And though I prais'd your valour, yet 
I did not mean to baulk your wit, 300 

Which, if you have, you must needs know 
"What, I have told you before now, 
And you by experiment have prov'd, 
I cannot love where I'm belov'd. 

Quoth Hudibras, 'Tis a caprich ' 305 

Beyond the infliction of a witch ; 
So cheats to play with those still aim, 
That do not understand the game. 
Love in your heart as idly burns 
As fire in antique Roman urns, 2 310 

To warm the dead, and vainly light 
Those only that see nothing by 't. 
Have you not power to entertain, 
And render love for love again ? 

As no man can draw in his breath 315 

At once, and force out air beneath. 
Or do you love yourself so much 
To bear all rivals else a grutch ? 
What fate can lay a greater curse, 
Than you upon yourself would force , 320 

For wedlock without love, some say, 3 
Is but a lock without a key. 
It is a kind of rape to marry 
One that neglects, or cares not for ye : 

1 Caprice is here pronounced in the manner of the Italian capriccio. 

2 Fortunius Licetus wrote concerning these lamps ; and from him ~' 
Wilkins quotes largely in his Mathematical Memoirs. In Camden's De- 
scription of Yorkshire, a lamp is said to have been found burning in the 
tomb of Constantius Chlorus. The story of the lamp, in the sepulchre of 
Tullia, the daughter of Cicero, which was supposed to hare burnt above 
1550 years, is told by Pancirollus and others. These so-called perpetual 
lamps of the ancients were probably the spontaneous or accidental com- 
bustion of inflammable gases generated in close sepulchres ; or the phos- 
phorescence exhibited by animal substances in a state of decomposition. 

3 Thus Shakspeare, 1 Henry VI. Act v. sc. 5. 

" For what is wedlock forced, but a hell, 
An age of discord and continual strife r" 
l 2 



148 HTTDIBBAS. [PAET II. 

For what does -make it ravishment 325 

Bat b'ing against the mind's consent ? 

A rape that is the more inhuman, 

For behig acted by a woman. 

"Why are you fair, but to entice us 

To love you, that you may despise us ? 330 

But though you cannot love, you say, 

Out of your own fantastic way, 1 

Why should you not, at least, allow 

Those that love you, to do so too : 

For as you fly me, and pursue 335 

Love more averse, so I do you : 

And am, by your own doctrine, taught 

To practise what you call a fault. 

Quoth she, If what you say be true, 
You must fly me, as I do you ; 340 

But 'tis not what we do, but say, 3 
In love, and preaching, that must sway. 

Quoth he, To bid me not to love, 
Is to forbid my pulse to move, 

My beard to grow, my ears to prick up, 345 

Or, when I'm in a fit, to hickup : 
Command me to piss out the moon, 
And 'twill as easily be done. 
Love's power's too great to be withstood 
By feeble human flesh and blood. 350 

'Twas he that brought upon his knees 
The hect'ring kill-cow Hercules ; 3 
Beduc'd his leaguer-lion's skin 4 
T a petticoat, and make him spin : 

1 This is Grey's emendation for " fanatick," which Butler's editions 
have, and it certainly agrees with what the widow says afterwards in lines 
545, 546. But "fanatic " signifies "fantastic in the highest degree," and 
thus irrational, or absurd. 

2 "Do as I say, not as I do ; " is said to have been the very rational 
recommendation of a preacher whose teaching was more correct than his 
practice. 

3 It is of the essence of burlesque poetry to turn into ridicule such le- 
gends as the labours of Hercules ; and the common epithet " kill-cow " was 
exactly adapted to the character of these exploits. 

4 Leaguer was a camp; and "leaguer-lion's skin" is no more than the 
costume of Hercules the warrior, as contrasted with Omphale's petticoat, 
the costume of Hercules the lover. (See Skinner, sub voce Leaguer.) 



CA>'TO I.] HUDIBRAS. 149 

Seiz'd on his club, and made it dwindle l 355 

T' a feeble distaff", and a spindle. 

'Twas be made emperors gallants 

To tbeir own sisters and' tbeir aunts ; 2 

Set popes and cardinals agog, 

To play witb pages at leap-frog ; 3 £60 

'T was be tbat gave our senate purges, 

And flus'd the bouse of many a burgess ; 4 

Made tbose tbat represent the nation 

Submit, and suffer amputation : 

And all the grandees o' th' cabal, 365 

Adjourn to tubs, at spring and fall. 

He mounted synod-men, and rode 'em 

To Dirty-lane and Little Sodom ; 5 

Made 'em curvet, like Spanish gennets, 

And take the ring at Madam . G 370 

'Twas he that made Saint Francis do 
More than the devil could tempt him to ; 7 

1 See Ovid's Epistle of Dejanira to Hercules. (Bonn's Ovid. vol. iii. p. 
81.) 

2 See Suetonius, Tacitus, and other historians of the Roman Empire. 

3 The name of Alexander Borgia (Pope Alexander VI.) continues to be 
the synonyme for the unspeakable abominations of the Papal Court, in the 
times that were not long past when Butler wrote. 

* This alludes to the exclusion of the opponents of the army from the 
Parliament, called "Pride's Purge." 

5 Dirty-lane was not an unfrequent name for a place like tbat referred 
to ; Maitland names five, in bis time. One was in Old Palace Yard, and 
may have been meant by Butler. Little Sodom was near the Tower, on the 
site now occupied by St Catharine's Docks. These and other charges 
brought against the Puritan and Parliamentary leaders, will be found in 
Echard's History of England, and Walker's History of Independency. 
Cromwell, when he expelled the Long Parliament, himself called Martyn 
and "Wentworth, " whoremasters." 

6 Sir Roger L'Estrange's " Key" fills up the blank with the name of 
" Stennet," the wife of a "broom-man" and lay-elder; and the same 
name is given in our contemporary MS. She is said to have fol- 
lowed " the laudable employment of bawding, and managed several in- 
trigues for those brothers and sisters, whose piety consisted chiefly in trrb 
whiteness of their linen." The Tatler mentions a lady of this stamp, called 
Bennet. 

7 In the Life of St Francis, we are told that, being tempted by the 
devil in the shape of a virgin, he subdued his passion by rolling himself 
naked in the snow. 



150 HUDIBKAS. [PABT II. 

In cold and frosty weather grow 

Enamour' d of a wife of snow ; 

And though she were of rigid temper, 375 

"With melting flames accost and tempt her : 

Which after in enjoyment quenching, 

He hung a garland on his engine. 1 

Quoth she, If love have these effects, 
Why is it not forbid our sex ? 380 

Why is 't not damn'd, and interdicted, 
Por diabolical and wicked ? 
And sung, as out of tune, against, 
As Turk and Pope are by the saints ? 2 
I find, I've greater reason for it, 385 

Than I believ'd before t' abhor it. 

Quoth Hudibras, These sad effects 
Spring from your heathenish neglects 
Of love's great pow'r, which he returns 
Upon yourselves with equal scorns ; 390 

And those who worthy lovers slight, 
Plagues with prepost'rous appetite ; 
This made the beauteous queen of Crete 
To take a town-bull for her sweet ; 3 
And from her greatness stoop so low, 395 

To be the rival of a cow. 
Others, to prostitute their great hearts, 
To be baboons' and monkeys' sweet-hearts.* 
Some with the devil himself in league grow, 
By's representative a negro ; 5 400 

1 In the history of Howell's Life of Lewis XIII. p. 80, it is said that 
the French horsemen, who were killed at the Isle of Ehe, had their mis- 
tresses' favours tied about their engines 

2 Perhaps alluding to Robert Wisdom's hymn : 

"Preserve us, Lord, by thy dear word — 
From Turk and Pope, defend us, Lord." 

3 Pasiphae, the wife of Minos, of Crete, according to the myth, fell in 
love with a bull, and brought him a son. 

i Old books of Natural History contain many stories of the " abduction " 
of women by the Mandrill, and other great kinds of ape. And fouler 
tales than these were circulated after the Restoration, against the Puritans. 

5 Such an amour forms the plot of Titus Andronicus, a play which 
Shakspeare revised for the stage, and which has in consequence been 
wrongly ascribed to him. 



CANTO I.] HITDIBEAS. 151 

'Twas this made vestal maids love-sick, 

And venture to be buried quick. 1 

Some, by their fathers and their brothers, 2 

To be made mistresses, and mothers ; 3 

'Tis this that proudest dames enamours 105 

On lacqueys, and varlets-des-chambres ; 4 

Their haughty stomachs overcomes, 

And. makes 'em stoop to dirty grooms, 

To slight the world, and to disparage 

Claps, issue, infamy, and marriage. 5 410 

Quoth she, These judgments are severe, 
Tet such as I should rather bear, 
Than trust men with their oaths, or prove 
Their faith and secrecy in love. 

Says he, There is a weighty reason 415 

For secrecy in love as treason. 
Love is a burglarer, a felon, 
That in the windore-eye 6 does steal in 
To rob the heart, and, with his prey, 
Steals out again a closer way, 420 

"Which whosoever can discover, 
He's sure, as he deserves, to suffer. 
Love is a fire, that burns and sparkles 
In men, as naturally as in charcoals, 
"Which sooty chemists stop in holes, 425 

When out of wood they extract coals ; 7 
So lovers should their passions choke, 
That tho' they burn, they may not smoke. 

1 By the Roman law vestal virgins, who hroke their vow of chastity, were 
buried alive. See the story of Myrrha in Ovid. Metam. (Bohn's Ovid's 
M. p. 359). 

2 The marriage of brothers and sisters was common amongst royal fami- 
lies in Egypt and the East. 

3 Probably alluding to Lucretia Borgia, daughter of Pope Alexander VI., 
whom Roscoe (Leo X. App.) has attempted to defend against these charges. 

4 Varlet is the- old form of valet. Thus knave, which now signifies a 
cheat, formerly meant no more than a servant. 

5 That is, to be indifferent to the consequences of illicit amours ; the ab- 
sence of marriage and legitimate offspring on the one hand, and the ac- 
quisition of claps and infamy on the other. 

6 Thus spelt in all editions before 1700 for "window," and perhaps 
most agreeably to the etymology. See Skinner. 

7 Charcoal is made by burning wood under a cover of turf and rcDuid, 
which keeps it from blazing. 



152 HTJDIBEAS. [PAET II. 

'Tis like that sturdy thief that stole, 

And dragg'd beasts backward into's hole ; l 430 

So love does lovers, and us men 

Draws by the tails into his den, 

That no impression may discover, 

And trace t' his cave, the wary lover. 

But if you doubt'I should reveal 435 

What you intrust me under seal, 2 

I'll prove myself as close and virtuous 

As your own secretary, Albertus. 3 

Quoth she, I grant you may be close 
In hiding what your aims propose : 440 

Love-passions are like parables, 
By which men still mean something else : 
Tno' love be all the world's pretence, 
Money's the mythologic sense, 4 
The real substance of the shadow, 445 

"Which all address and courtship's made to. 

Thought he, I understand your play, 
And how to quit you your own way ; 
He that will win his dame, must do 
As Love does, when he bends his bow ; 450 

"With one hand thrust the lady from, 
And with the other pull her home. 5 
I grant, quoth he, wealth is a great 
, Provocative to am'rous heat : 



1 Cacus, the noted robber, when he had stolen cattle, drew them back- 
ward by their tails into his den, lest their tracks should lead to the disco- 
very of them. See Virgil, .ZEneid. viii. 205. Also Addison's Works (Bohn), 
v. 220. 

2 There is, no doubt, an allusion here to the obligation of secrecy, on the 
part of the confessor, respecting the confession of penitents, except in the 
case of crimes ; which was also enjoined upon ministers of the English 
Church, by the 113th Canon of 1603. 

3 Albertus Magnus, Bp of Ratisbon about 1260, wrote a book, De Secretis 
Mulierum; whence the poet facetiously calls him woman's secretary. 

4 Grey says this is illustrated in the story of Inkle and Yarico. Specta- 
tor, XI. 

5 The Harleian Miscellany, vol. vi. p. 530, describes an interview be- 
tween Perkin Warbeck and Lady Katharine Gordon, which illustrates this 
kind of dalliance. " With a kind of reverence and fashionable gesture, 
after he had kissed her thrice, he took her in both his hands, crosswise, and 
gazed upon her, with a kind of putting her from him and pulling her to 



CA>'TO I.] HTJDIBBAS. 153 

It is all philtres and high diet, 4-55 

That makes love rampant, and to fly out : 

'Tis beauty always in the flower, 

That buds and blossoms at fourscore : 

'Tis that by which the sun and moon, 

At their own weapons are outdone : l 460 

That makes knights-errant fall in trances, 

And lay about 'em in romances : 

"Tis virtue, wit, and worth, and all 

That men divine and sacred call : 

For what is worth in anything, 4,65 

But so much money as 'twill bring ? 

Or what but riches is there known, 

"Which man can solely call his own ; 

In which no creature goes his half, 

Unless it be to squint and laugh ? 470 

I do confess, with goods and land, 2 

I'd have a wife at second hand ; 

And such you are : nor is't your person 

My stomach's set so sharp and fierce on ; 

But 'tis' your better part, your riches, 475 

That my enamour'd heart bewitches : 

Let me your fortune but possess, 

And settle your person how you please ; 

Or make it o'er in trust to the devil, 

You'll find me reasonable and civil. 480 

Quoth she, I like this plainness better 
Than false mock-passion, speech, or letter, 
Or any feat of qualm or sowning, 3 
But hanging of yourself, or drowning ; 
Your only way with me to break 485 

Your mind, is breaking of your neck : 

him ; and so again and again re-kissed her, and set her in her place, with a 
pretty manner of enforcement." 

1 Gold and silver are marked by the sun and moon in chemistry, as they 
■were supposed to be more immediately under the influence of those lumin- 
aries. The appropriation of the seven metals known to the ancients, to the 
seven planets with which they were acquainted, respectively, may be traced 
as high as Proclus, in the fifth century. The splendour of gold is more 
refulgent than the rays of the sun and moon. 

2 Compare the whole of this passage with Petruchio's speech in the 
Taming of the Shrew, Act i. sc. 2 ; and Grumio's explanation of it. 

3 Altered to " swooning " in the edition of 1700. 



15i HUDIBEAS. [PAET II. 

For aa when merchants break, o'erthrown 

Like nine-pins, they strike others down ; 

So that would break my heart ; which done, 

My tempting fortune is your own. 490 

These are but trifles ; every lover 

"Will damn himself over and over, 

And greater matters undertake 

For a less worthy mistress' sake : 

Yet th' are the only ways to prove 495 

Th' unfeign'd realities of love ; 

For he that hangs, or beats out's brains, 

The devil's in him if he feigns. 

Quoth Hudibras, This way's too rough 
For mere experiment and proof ; 500 

It is no jesting, trivial matter, 
To swing i' th' air, or douce in water, l 
And, like a water- witch, try love ; 2 
That's to destroy, and not to prove : 
As if a man should be dissected, 505 

To find what part is disaffected : 
Your better way is to make over, 
In trust, your fortune to your lover : 3 
Trust is a trial ; if it break, 

'Tis not so desp'rate as a neck : 510 

Beside, th' experiment's more certain, 
Men venture necks to gain a fortune : 
The soldier does it every day, 4 
Eight to the week, for six-pence pay : 5 

1 Var. " plunge in water," or " dive in water." 

2 The common test for witchcraft was to throw the suspected witch into 
the water. If she swam, she was judged guilty ; if she sank, she preserved her 
character, and only lost her life. King James, in his Dcemonology, explain- 
ed the floating of the witch by the refusal of the element used in baptism to 
receive into its bosom one who had renounced the blessing of it. The last 
witch swum in England was an old woman in a village of Suffolk, about 
30 years ago. 

3 Grey compares this to the highwayman's advice to a gentleman upon 
the road; "Sir, be pleased to leave your watch, your money, and your 
rings with me, or by you'll be robbed." 

4 This and the three following lines were added in the edition of 1674. 

5 "Warburton explains that "if a soldier gets only sixpence a day, and one 
day's pay is reserved weekly for stoppages, he must make eight days to the 
week before he will receive a clear week's pay." Percennius, the mutinous 



CANTO I.] HTJDIBRAS. 155 

Tour pettifoggers damn their souls, 616 

To share with knaves in cheating fools : 

And merchants, venturing through the main, l 

Slight pirates, rocks, and horns for gain. 

This is the way I advise you to, 

Trust me, and see what I will do. 620 

Quoth she, I should he loth to run 
Myself all th' hazard, and you none ; 
Which must he done, unless some deed 
Of yours aforesaid do precede ; 

Give but yourself one gentle swing 2 525 

For trial, and I'll cut the string : 
Or give that rev'rend head a maul, 
Or two, or three, against a wall ; 
To show you are a man of mettle, 
And I'll engage myself to settle. 530 

Quoth he, My head's not made of brass, 
As Friar Bacon's noddle was ; 3 
Nor, like the Indian's skull, so tough, 
That, authors say, 'twas musket-proof: 4 
As it had need to be to enter, 635 

As yet, on any new adventure ; 
You see what bangs it has endur'd, 
That would, before new feats, be cur'd : 

6oldier in Tacitus (Annals I. c. 17), seems to have been sensible of some 
such hardship. 

1 See Spectator, No. 450. 

2 Grey surmises from Hudibras's refusal to comply with this request, 
that he would by no means have approved an antique game invented by a 
Thracian tribe, of which we are told by Martinus Scriblerus (book i. ch. 6) 
that one of the players was hung up, and had a knife given him to cut 
himself down with ; of course, forfeiting his life if he failed. 

3 It was one of the legends respecting that great natural philosopher, 
Roger Bacon, that he had formed a head of brass, which uttered these 
words, Time is. Sir Thomas Browne, in his Vulgar Errors, book vii. ch. 
17, § 7, explains it as a kind of myth regarding " the philosopher's great 
work" — the making of gold. In Sir Francis Palgrave's " Merchant and 
Friar," it is no more than the extremity of a tube for conveying messages 
from one room to another. 

4 Blockheads and loggerheads, says Bulwer (Artificial Changeling, p. 42), 
are in request in Brazil, and helmets are of little use, every one having a na- 
tural morion of his head : for the Brazilians' heads, some of them, are as 
hard as the wood that grows in their country, so that they cannot be 
broken. See also Purchas's Pilgr. fol. vol. iii. p. 993. 



156 HTJDIBEAS. [PAET II. 

But if that's all you stand upon, 

Here, strike me luck, it shall be done. 1 54C 

Quoth she, The matter's not so far gone 
As you suppose, two words t' a bargain ; 
That may be done, and time enough, 
"When you have given downright proof : 
And yet, 'tis no fantastic pique 545 

I have to love, nor coy dislike ; 
'Tis no implicit, nice aversion 2 
T' your conversation, mien, or person : 
But, a just fear, lest you should prove 
False and perfidious in love ; 650 

For if I thought you could be true, 
I could love twice as much as you. 

Quoth he, My faith, as adamantine 
As chains of destiny, I'll maintain ; 
True as Apollo ever spoke, 655 

Or oracle from heart of oak ; 3 
And if you'll give my flame but vent, 
Now in close hugger-mugger pent, 
And shine upon me but benignly, 
"With that one, and that other pigsney, 4 560 

The sun and day shall sooner part, 
Than love, or you, shake off my heart : 
The sun that shall no more dispense 
His own, but your bright influence ; 
I'll carve your name on barks of trees, 5 565 

"With true love-knots, and flourishes ; 

1 In ancient times, when butchers and country people made a bargain, 
one of the parties held out in his hand a piece of money, which the other 
struck, and the bargain was closed. Compare this " impolite way of count- 
ing" with the following expression ; — 

" Come, strike me luck with earnest, and draw the writings." 

Beaumont and Fletcher. — Scornful Lady, Act ii. 

2 Implicit signifies secret, not explicit ; here was not a fanciful aversion 
which could not be explained. Nice means over-refined or squeamish. 

3 Jupiter's oracle near Dodona, in Epirus ; Apollo's oracle was the cele- 
brated one at Delphi. 

4 Pigsney is a term of endearment ; used here, however, of the eyes 
alone. In Pembroke's Arcadia, Dametas says to his wife, " Miso, mine 
own pigsnie." Somner gives piga (Danish), "a little maid," as the ety- 
mology of this word ; which is a purely burlesque expression. 

5 See Dou Quixote, vol. i. ch. 4, and vol. iv. ch. 73 ; As you like it, 
Act 3. 



CANTO I.] HTJDIBEAS. 157 

That shall infuse eternal spring, 

And everlasting flourishing : 

Drink every letter on't in stum, 1 

And make it hrisk champagne hecome ; 570 

Where'er you tread, your foot shall set 

The primrose and the violet ; 

All spices, perfumes, and sweet powders, 

Shall borrow from your breath their odours ; 

Nature her charter shall renew, 57.", 

And take all lives of things from you ; 

The world depend upon your eye, 

And when you frown upon it, die. 

Only our loves shall still survive, 

New worlds and natures to outlive ; 580 

And like to heralds' moons, remain 

All crescents, without change or wane. 

Hold, hold, quoth she, no more of this, 
Sir Knight, you take your aim amiss ; 
For you will find it a hard chapter, 585 

To catch me with poetic rapture, 
In which your mastery of art 
Doth show itself, and not your heart ; 
Nor will you raise in mine combustion, 
By dint of high heroic fustian : 590 

She that with poetry is won, 
Is but a desk to write upon ; 
And what men say of her, they mean 
No more than on the thing they lean. 

1 Stum (from the Latin mustum) is any new, thick, unfermented liquor. 
Hudibras means that bad wine would turn into good, foul muddy wine into 
clear sparkling champagne, by drinking the widow's health in it. It was 
a custom among the gallants of Butler's time, to drink a bumper to their 
mistress' health to every letter of her name. The custom prevailed among 
the Romans : thus the well-known epigram of Martial : 

Laevia sex cyathis, septem Justina bibatur, 

Quinque Lycas, Lyde quatuor, Ida tribus. 
Omnis ab infuso numeretur arnica falerno. — Ep. I. 72. 

For every letter drink a glass 

That spells the«hame you fancy, 
Take four, if Suky be your lass, 

And five, if it be Nancy. 



158 HTTDIBRAS. [PART II. 

Some with Arabian spices strive 595 

T' embalm her cruelly alive ; 

Or season her, as French cooks use 

Their Jiaut-gouts, bouillies, or ragouts; 1 

Use her so barbarously ill, 

To grind her lips upon a mill, 2 600 

Until the facet doublet doth 3 

Fit their rhymes rather' than her mouth ; 4 

Her mouth compar'd t' an oyster's, with 

A row of pearl in't, 'stead of teeth ; 

Others make posies of her cheeks, 605 

"Where red and whitest colours mix ; 

In which the lily and the rose, 

For Indian lake and ceruse goes. 5 

The sun and moon, by her bright eyes, 

Eclips'd and darken'd in the skies ; 610 

Are but black patches that she wears, 

Cut into suns, and moons, and stars, 6 

By which astrologers, as well 

As those in heav'n above, can tell 

"What strange events they do foreshow, 615 

Unto her under- world below. 7 

1 Till the edition of 1704, this line stood: 

Their haut-gusts, buollies, or ragusts. 
These things were " made-dishes," and were all highly flavoured, and 
hot with spices. 

2 As they do by comparing her lips to rubies, which are polished by a 
mill. 

3 Facet, a little face, or small surface. Diamonds and precious stones 
are ground a lafacette, or with many faces or small surfaces, that they may 
have the greater lustre. A doublet is a false stone, made of two crystals 
joined together with green or red cement between them, in order to resem- 
ble stones of that colour. Facet doublet, therefore, is a false stone cut in 
faces. 

4 See Don Quixote, ch. 73 and ch. 38 ; also the description of "a 
Whore," by John Taylor, the water poet, for other satires on this fantastic 
habit of lovers. 

5 These are the names of two pigments, the former crimson ; the latter 
a preparation of white lead and vinegar. 

6 The ladies formerly were very fond of wearing a great number of black 
patches on their faces, often cut in fantastical shapes. See Bulwer's Arti- 
ficial Changeling, p. 252, &c. ; Spectator, No. 50 ; and Beaumont and 
Fletcher's "Elder Brother," Act iii. sc. 11. 

7 A double entendre. This and the three preceding lines do not appear 
in the editions of 1664, but were added in 1674. 



CAVIO I.] HTTDIBEAS. 159 

Her voice, the music of the spheres, 

So loud, it deafens mortal ears ; 

As wise philosophers have thought, 

And that's the cause we hear it not. 1 620 

This has been done by some, who those 

Th' ador'd in rhyme, would kick in prose ; 

And in those ribbons would have hung, 

Of which melodiously they sung. 2 

That have the hard fate, to write best 625 

Of those still that deserve it least ; 3 

It matters not how false, or forc'd, 

So the best things be said o' th' worst ; 

It goes for nothing when 'tis said, 

Only the arrow's drawn to th' head, 630 

"Whether it be a swan or goose 

They level at : so shepherds use 

To set the same mark on the hip, 

Both of their sound and rotten sheep : 

For wits that carry low or wide, 635 

Must be aim'd higher, or beside 

The mark, which else they ne'er come nigh, 

But when they take their aim awry. 

But I do wonder you should chuse 

This way t' attack me with your muse. 640 

1 Pythagoras asserted that this world is made according to musical pro- 
portion ; and that the seven planets, betwixt heaven and earth, which go- 
vern the nativities of mortals, have an harmonious motion, and render vari- 
ous sounds, according to their several heights, so consonant, that they 
make most sweet melody, but to us inaudible, because of the greatness of 
the noise, which the narrow passage of our ears is not capable to receive. 
He is presumed to have interpreted the passage in Job literally : " When 
the morning stars sang together," chap. xxix. 7. Stanley's Life of Py- 
thagoras, p. 393. Milton wrote on the Harmony of the Spheres, when 
at Cambridge ; and has some fine lines on the subject, in his Arcades, 
and in his Paradise Lost, v. 625, &c. See Shakspeare's Merchant of Venice 
Act v. sc. 1, for the most exquisite passage in the language on this subject. 

2 Thus Waller on a girdle : 

" Give me but what this riband bound." 

3 Warburton was of opinion that Butler alluded to one of Mr Waller's 
poems on Saccharissa, where he complains of her unkindness. Others sup- 
pose, with more probability, that he alludes to the poet's well-known reply 
to the king, when he reproached him with having written best in praise 
of Oliver Cromwell. " We poets," says he, "succeed better in fiction than 
in truth." 



ItfO HTTDIEEAS. [PAST II. 

As one cut out to pass your tricks on, 

With fulhams of poetic fiction : 1 

I rather hop'd I should no more 

Hear from you o' th' gallanting score ; 

For hard dry-hastings us'd to prove 645 

The readiest remedies of love, 

Next a dry diet ; hut if those fail, 

Tet this uneasy loop-hol'd jail, 

In which y' are hamper' d by the fetlock, 

Cannot hut put y' in mind of wedlock : 650 

"Wedlock, that's worse than any hole here, 

If that may serve you for a cooler, 

T' allay your mettle, all agog 

Upon a wife, the heavier clog. 

Nor rather thank your gentler fate, 655 

That, for a hruis'd or broken pate, 

Has freed you from those knobs that grow, 

Much harder, on the marry' d brow : 

But if no dread can cool your courage, 

From vent' ring on that dragon, marriage ; 660 

Tet give me quarter, and advance 

To nobler aims your puissance ; 

Level at beauty and at wit ; 

The fairest mark is easiest hit. 

Quoth Hudibras, I am beforehand 665 

In that already, with your command ; 
For where does beauty and high wit 
But in your constellation meet ? 

Quoth she, What does a match imply, 
But likeness and equality ? " 670 

I know you cannot think me fit 
To be th' yokefellow of your wit ; 
Nor take one of so mean deserts, 
To be the partner of your parts ; 

1 That is, with cheats or impositions. Fulham was a cant word for *. 
false dice, many of them, as it is supposed, being made at that place. The 
high dice were loaded so as to come up 4, 5, 6, and the low ones 1, 2, 3. 
" For gourd and fullam holds," says Pistol, 
' And high and low beguile the rich and poor." 

Merry Wives of Windsor, Act i. sc. 3. 
And Cleveland says : "Now a Scotchman's tongue runs high fulhams." 



CANTO I.] 11CDIBEAS. 161 

A grace •which, if I eould believe, 675 

I've not the conscience to receive. 1 

That conscience, quoth Hudibras, 
Is misinform' d ; I'll state the case. 
A man may be a legal donor 

Of anything whereof he's owner, 880 

And may confer it where he lists, 
I' th' judgment of all casuists : 
Then wit, and parts, and valour may 
Be ali'nated, and made away, 

By those that are proprietors, 685 

As I may give or sell my horse. 

Quoth she, I grant the case is true, 
And proper 'twixt your horse and you ; 
And whether I may take, as well 
As you may give away, or sell ? 690 

Buyers, you know, are bid beware ; 2 
And worse than thieves receivers are. 
How shall I answer Hue and Cry 3 
For a roan gelding, twelve hands high, 4 
All spurr'd and switch'd, a lock on's hoof, 5 695 

A sorrel mane ? Can I bring proof 
Where, when, by whom, and what y' were sold for, 
And in the open market toll'd for ? 6 
Or, should I take you for a stray, 
You must be kept- a year and day, 7 700 

1 Conscience is here used as a word of two syllables, and in the next 
line as three. 

2 See Caveat emptor ! Diet, of Classical Quotations. 

3 Hue and Cry was the legal notice to a neighbourhood for pursuit of a 
felon. See Blackstone. 

4 This is a galling reflection upon the knight's abilities, his complexion, 
and his height, which the widow intimates was not more than four feet. 

5 There is humour in the representation which the widow makes of the 
knight, under the similitude of a roan gelding, supposed to be stolen, or to 
have strayed. Farmers often put locks on the fore-feet of their horses, to 
prevent their being stolen, and the knight had his feet fast in the stocks at 
the time. 

6 This alludes to the custom enjoined by two Acts, 2 & 3 Phil, and 
Mary, and 31 Eliz., of tolling horses at fairs, to prevent the sale of any that 
might have been stolen, and help the owners to the recovery of them. 

7 Estrays, or cattle which came astray, were cried on two market davs, 
and in two adjoining market towns, and if not claimed within a year and a 
day, they became the property of the lord of the liberty (or manor). 



162 HUDIBEAS. [PART II. 

Ere I can own you, here i' th' pound, 
"Where, if ye're sought, you may be found ; 
And in the mean time I must pay 
For all your provender and hay. 

Quoth he, It stands me much upon 705 

T' enervate this objection, 
And prove myself, by topic clear, 
No gelding, as you would infer. 
Loss of virility's averr'd 

To be the cause of loss of beard, 1 710 

That does, like embryo in the womb, 
Abortive on the chin become : 
This first a woman did invent, 
In envy of man's ornament : 

Semiramis of Babylon, 715 

"Who first of all cut men o' th' stone, 2 
To mar their beards, and laid foundation 
Of sow-geldering operation : 
Look on this beard, and tell me whether 
Eunuchs wear such, or geldings either ? 720 

Next it appears I am no horse, 
That I can argue and discourse, 
Have but two legs, and ne'er a tail. 

Quoth she, That nothing will avail ; 
Eor some philosophers of late here, 725 

"Write men have four legs by nature, 3 
And that 'tis custom makes them go 
Erroneously upon but two ; 
As 'twas in Germany made good, 
B' a boy that lost himself in a wood ; 730 

1 See the note on line 114 of this Canto. 

2 Semiramis, queen of Assyria, is reputed to be the first that invented 
eunuchs : Semiramis teneros mares castravit omnium prima (Am. Mar- 
cellinus, i. 24), which is thought to be somewhat strange in a lady of 
her constitution, who is said to have received horses into her embrace. 
But the poet means to laugh at Dr Bulwer, who in his Artificial Changeling, 
scene 21, has many strange stories; and in page 208, says, " Nature gave 
to mankind a beard, that it might remain an index in the face of the mas- 
culine generative faculty." 

3 Sir Kenelm Digby, in his book of Bodies, has the well-known stor;' of 
the wild German boy, who went on all fours, was overgrown with hair, and 
lived among the wild beasts ; the credibility and truth of which he endea- 
vours to establish by several natural reasons. See also Tatler, No. 103. 



CA>"TO I.] HTTDIBEAS. 163 

And growing down t' a man, was wont 

With wolves upon all four to hunt. 

As for your reasons drawn from tails, 1 

"We cannot say they're true or false, 

Till you explain yourself, and show 735 

B' experiment, 'tis so or no. 

Quoth he, If you'll join issue on't, 2 
I'll give you satisfact'ry account ; 
So you will promise, if you lose, 
To settle all, and he my spouse. 740 

That never shall he done, quoth she, 
To one that wants a tail, hy me ; 
For tails by nature sure were meant, 
As well as beards, for ornament ; 3 
And tho' the vulgar count them homely, 745 

In man or beast they are so comely, 
So gentee, alamode, and handsome, 4 
I'll never marry man that wants one : 
And till you can demonstrate plain, 
You have one equal to your mane, 750 

I'll be torn piece-meal by a horse, 
Ere I'll take you for better or worse. 
The Prince of Cambay's daily food 
Is asp, and basilisk, and toad, 5 

1 See Fontaine, Conte de la jument du compere Pierre. Lord Monboddo 
had a theory about tails ; he maintained that naturally they were as 
proper appendages to man as to beasts ; but that the practice of sitting had 
in process of time completely abraded them. 

2 That is, rest the cause upon this point. 

3 Mr Butler here alludes to Dr Bulwer's Artificial Changeling, p. 410, 
where, besides the story of the Kentish men near Bockester, who had 
tails clapped to their breeches by Thomas a Beckett, he gives an account, 
from an honest young man of Captain Morris's company, in Ireton's regi- 
ment, " that at Cashell, in the county of Tipperary, in Carrick Patrick 
church, seated on a rock, stormed by Lord Inchequin, where near 700 were 
put to the sword, there were found among the slain of the Irish, when they 
were stripped, divers that had tails near ,a quarter of a yard long : forty 
soldiers, that were eye-witnesses, testified the same upon their oaths." 
For an account of the Kentish Long-tails, see Lambarde's Perambulation 
of Kent, p. 315, and Bonn's Handbook of Proverbs, p. 207. 

4 Gentee is the affected pronunciation of the French gentil. 

5 See Purchas's Pilgrime, vol. ii. p. 1495, for the story of Macamut, 
Sultan of Cambay, who is said to have lived upon poison, and so complete- 

m 2 



164 HTJDIBBAS. [PAET II. 

Which makes him have so strong a breath, 755 

Each night he stinks a queen to death ; 
Yet I shall rather lie in's arms 
Than your's, on any other terms. 

Quoth he, "What nature can afford 
I shall produce, upon my word ; 760 

And if she ever gave that boon 
To man, I '11 prove that I have one ; 
I mean, by postulate illation, 1 
"When you shall offer just occasion ; 
But since ye've yet denied to give 765 

My heart, your pris'ner, a reprieve, 
But make it sink down to my heel, 
Let that at least your pity feel ; 
And for the sufferings of your martyr, 
Give its poor entertainer quarter ; 770 

And by discharge, or mainprise, grant 
Deliv'ry from this base restraint. 2 

Quoth she, I grieve to see your leg^ 
Stuck in a hole here like a peg, 

And if I knew which way to do't, 775 

Tour honour safe, I'd let you out. 
That dames by jail-delivery 
Of errant knights have been set free, 3 
"When by enchantment they have been, 
And sometimes for it too, laid in, 780 

Is that which knights are bound to do 
By order, oaths, and honour too ; 

ly to have saturated his breath, that contact with him caused the death of 
4000 concubines. Philosoph. Transactions, lxvi. 314. Montaigne, b. i. 
Essay on Customs. A gross double entendre runs through the whole of the 
widcw's speeches, and likewise through those of the knight. See T. War- 
ton on English Poetry, iii. p. 10. 

1 That is, by inference, consequence, or presumptive evidence. 

2 Grey supposes that the usher, who attended the widow, might be 
the constable of the place, and that on that account Hudibras begged her 
to release him ; but it is more probable that she was of sufficient consider- 
ation to obtain his liberation, either absolutely, or on bail ; or that she 
could order her said usher to open the stocks and set hin» free. 

3 These and the following lines are a banter upon romance writers. Our 
author keeps Don Quixote (Gayton's translation) constantly in his eye, when 
he is aiming at this object. In Europe, the Spaniards and the French en- 
gaged first in this kind of writing : from them it was communicated to the 
English. 



CANTO I.] HUDIBRA3. 165 

For what are they renown' d and famous else, 

But aiding of distressed dainosels i J 

But for a lady, no ways errant, 1 785 

To free a knight, we have no warrant 

In any authentical romance, 

Or classic author yet of France ; 

And I'd be loth to have you break 

An ancient custom for a freak, 790 

Or innovation introduce 

In place of things of antique use, 

To free your heels by any course, 

That might b' unwholesome to your spurs : 2 

Which if I should consent unto, 795 

It is not. in my pow'r to do ; 

For 'tis a service must be done ye 

"With solemn previous ceremony ; 

Which always has been us'd t' untie 

The charms of those who here do lie ; 800 

For as the ancients heretofore 

To Honour's temple had no door, 

But that which thorough Virtue's lay ; 3 

So from this dungeon there's no way 

To honour's freedom, but by passing - . 805 

That other virtuous school of lashing, 

Where knights are kept in narrow lists, 

With wooden lockets 'bout their wrists ; * 

In which they for awhile are tenants, 

And for their ladies suffer penance : 810 

Whipping, that's virtue's governess, 5 

Tut'ress of arts and sciences ; 

That mends the gross mistakes of nature, 

And piits new life into dull matter ; 

1 There were damsels-errant as well as knights-errant, in the romances, 
and the widow disclaims all connection with that order. 

2 That is, to his honour. The spurs were hadges of knighthood, and if 
a knight was degraded, his spurs were hacked to pieces by a menial. 

3 The temple of Virtue and Honour was built by Mavius ; the architect 
was Mutius ; it had no posticum. See Vitruvius, Piranesi, &c. 

4 This refers to the whipping of petty criminals — humorously styled 
Knights — in houses of correction. 

5 A sly glance at the passion for flagellation displayed by the masters of 
schools. 



166 HUDIBKAS. [PART II. 

That lays foundation for renown, 815 

And all the honours of the gown. 

This suffer'd, they are set at large, 

And freed with hon'rable discharge ; 

Then, in their robes, the penitentials 

Are straight presented with credentials, 1 820 

And in their way attended on 

By magistrates of every town ; 

And, all respect and charges paid, 

They're to their ancient seats convey' d. 

Now if you'll venture for my sake, 825 

To try the toughness of your back, 

And suffer, as the rest have done, 

The laying of a whipping on, 2 

And may you prosper in your suit, 

As you with equal vigour do't, 830 

I here engage myself to loose ye 

And free your heels from caperdewsie : 3 

But since our sex's modesty 

Will not allow I should be by, 

Bring me, on oath, a fair account, 835 

And honour too, when you have done't ; 

And I'll admit you to the place 

Tou claim as due in my good grace. 

If matrimony and hanging go 4 

By dest'ny, why not whipping too ? 840 

"What med'cine else can cure the fits 

Of lovers, when they lose their wits ? 

Love is a boy by poets styl'd, 

Then spare the rod, and spoil the child : 

1 This alludes to the Acts of Parliament, 33 Eliz. cap. 4, and 1 James 
I. c. 31, whereby vagrants were ordered to be whipped, and, with a certifi- 
cate of the fact, conveyed by constables to the place of their settlement. 

2 A reference to the Amatorial Flagellants of Spain ; no other way to 
move the hearts of their ladies being left them, they borrowed the ascetic's 
scourge, and used it. 

3 From 1674 to 1700, these lines stood : 

I here engage to be your bail, 

And free you from th' unknightly jail. 

The etymology of caperdewsie, evidently a term for the stocks, is unknown. 

4 Hanging and wiving go by destiny. Handbook of Proverbs, p. 367. 



CANTO I.] HTJDIBRAS. 167 

A Persian emp'ror whipp'd his grannum, 845 

The sea, his mother Venus came on ; l 

And hence some rev'rend men approve 

Of rosemary in making love. 2 

As skilful coopers hoop their tubs 

With Lydian and with Phrygian dubs, 3 850 

Why may not whipping have as good 

A grace, perform' d in time and mood, 

With comely movement, and by art, 

liaise passion in a lady's heart ? 

It is an easier way to make 855 

Love by, than that which many take. 

Who would not rather suffer whipping, 

Than swallow toasts of bits of ribbon ? 4 

Make wicked verses, treats, and faces, 

And spell names over with beer-glasses ? 5 860 

Be under vows to hang and die 

Love's sacrifice, and all a lie ? 

With China-oranges and tarts, 

And whining-plays, lay baits for hearts ? 

Bribe chambermaids with love and money, 865 

To break no roguish jests upon ye ; 

Por lilies limn'd on cheeks, and roses, 

With painted perfumes, hazard noses ? 6 

1 Xerxes -whipped the sea, which was the mother of Venus, and Venus 
was the mother of Cupid; the sea, therefore, was the "grannum," or 
grandmother, of Cupid, and the object of imperial flagellation, when the 
winds and the waves were not propitious. See Juven. Sat. x. 180. 

2 As Venus came from the sea the poet supposes some connection with 
the word rosemary, or ros maris, dew of the sea. Rosemary was worn at 
weddings, and carried at funerals. See chapter on the subject in vol. ii. 
p. 119 — 123, Brand's Pop. Antiquities (Bohn's edition). 

a Coopers, like blacksmiths, give to their work alternately a heavy 
stroke and a light one ; which our poet humorously compares to the 
Lydian and Phrygian measures. The former were soft and effeminate, the 
latter rough and martial. 

4 One of the follies practised by Inamoratos. Grey quotes a tract, printed 
in 1659, which informs us that French gallants " in their frolics, spare not 
the ornaments of their madams, who cannot wear a piece of ferret-ribbon, 
but they will cut it in pieces and swallow it in wine, to celebrate their bet- 
ter fortune." 

5 Spell them in the number of glasses of beer, as before at ver. 570. 

8 The plain meaning of the distich is, venture disease for painted and 
perfumed whores. 



168 HTTDIBRAS. [PAET II. 

Or, vent'ring to be brisk and wanton. 

Do penance in a paper lantborn ? l 870 

All this you may compound for now, 

By sufF ring what I offer you ; 

Which is no more than has been done 

By knights for ladies long agone. 

Did not the great La Mancha do so 875 

For the Infanta Del Toboso ? 2 

Did not th' illustrious Bassa make 

Himself a slave for Miss's sake ? 3 

And with bull's pizzle, for her love, 

Was taw'd as gentle as a glove ? 4 880 

Was not young Florio sent, to cool 

His flame for Biancafiore, to school, 5 

Where pedant made his pathic bum 6 

For her sake suffer martyrdom ? 

Did not a certain lady whip, 885 

Of late, her husband's own lordship ? 7 

1 Alluding to an ecclesiastical discipline for such faults as adultery and 
fornication. 

2 Meaning the penance -which Don Quixote underwent on the mountain 
for the sake of Dulcinea, Part i. book iii. ch. 2. 

3 Ibrahim, the illustrious Bassa, in the romance of Monsieur Scudery. 
His mistress, Isabella, princess of Monaco, being conveyed away to the 
Sultan's seraglio, he got into the palace disguised as a slave, and, after a 
multitude of adventures, became grand vizier. 

4 To tawe, is a term used by leather-dressers, signifying to soften the 
leather and make it pliable, by rubbing it. See Wright's Glossary. 

5 Alluding to an Italian romance, entitled Florio and Biancafiore. 
The widow here cites some illustrious examples of the three nations, 
Spanish, French, and Italian, to induce the knight to give himself a 
scourging, according to the established laws of chivalry. The adventures 
of Florio and Biancafiore, which make the principal subject of Boccacio's 
Filocopo, were famous long before Boccacio, as he himself informs us. 
Florio and Blancaster are mentioned as illustrious lovers, by a Lan- 
guedocian poet, in his Breviari d' Amor, dated in the year 1288 : it is 
probable, however, that the story was enlarged by Boccacio. See Tyrwhitt 
on Chaucer, iv. 169. 

6 Alluding to the schoolmasters' passion for whipping. 

7 The person here meant is Lady Munson. Her husband, Lord Mun- 
son. of Bury St Edmund's, one of the king's judges, being suspected by 
his lady of changing his political principles, was by her, with the as- 
sistance of her maids, tied naked to the bed-post, and whipped till he 
promised to behave better. For which useful piece of political zeal she 
received thanks in open court. Sir William Waller's lady, Mrs May, and 



CANTO I.] HTJDIBKAS. 109 

And, tho' a grandee of the house, 

Claw'd him with fundamental blows ; J 

Tied him stark naked to a bed-post, 

And firk'd his hide, as if sh' had rid post ; 890 

And after in the sessions' court, 

"Where whipping's judg'd, had honour for't ? 

This swear you will perform, and then 

I'll set you from th' enchanted den, 2 

And the magician's circle, clear. 895 

Quoth he, I do profess and swear, 
And will perforin what you enjoin, 
Or may I never see you mine. 

Amen, quoth she, then turn'd about, 
And bid her squire let him out. 3 900 

But ere an artist could be found 
T' undo the charms another bound, 
The sun grew low, and left the skies, 
Put down, some write, by ladies' eyes. 4 
The moon pull'd off her veil of light, 905 

That hides her face by day from sight. 
Mysterious veil, of brightness made, 
That's both her lustre and her shade, 5 
And in the lanthorn of the night, 
With shining horns, hung out her light : 6 910 

For darkness is the proper sphere 7 
Where all false glories use t' appear. 

Sir Henry Mildmay's lady, were supposed to have exercised the same 
authority. See History of Flagellants, p. 340, 8vo ; and Loyal Songs, 
vol. ii. p. 68, and 58. 

1 "Legislative hlows," in the two first editions. 

2 In editions subsequent to 1734, we read: 

I'll free you from the enchanted den. 

3 So in the corrections at the end of vol. ii. of the second edition in 1664. 

4 One of the romance writers' extravagant conceits. 

5 The rays of the sun obscure the moon by day, and enlighten it by 
night. This passage is extremely beautiful and poetical, showing, among 
many others, Butler's powers in serious poetry, if he had chosen that path. 

6 Altered subsequently to — 

And in the night as freely shone, 
As if her rays had been her own. 

7 This and the following line were first inserted in the edition of 1674. 



170 HTTDTBEAS. [PAET II. 

The twinkling stars began to muster, 

And glitter with their borrow' d lustre, 

While sleep the weary'd world reliev'd, 915 

By counterfeiting death reviv'd. 

Our vot'ry thought it best t' adjourn 

His whipping penance till the morn, 

And not to carry on a work 

Of such importance in the dark, 920 

With erring haste, but rather stay, 

And do't i' th' open face of day ; 

And in the mean time go in quest 

Of next retreat, to take his rest. 1 

1 The critic will remark how exact our poet is in observing times and 
seasons ; he describes morning and evening ; and one day only is passed 
since the opening of the poem. 




PART II. CANTO II. 




ARGUMENT. 

The Knight and Squire in hot dispute, 
Within an ace of falling out, 
Are parted with a sudden fright 
Of strange alarm, and stranger sight ; 
With which adventuring to stickle, 
They're sent away in nasty pickle. 



PART II. CANTO II. 




IS strange how some men's tempers suit, 
Like bawd and brandy, with dispute, 1 
That for their own opinions stand fast, 
Only to have them claw'd and canvast. 
That keep their consciences in cases, 2 5 
As tiddlers do their crowds and bases, 3 
Ne'er to be us'd but when they're bent 

To play a fit for argument. 4 

Make true and false, unjust and just, 

Of no use but to be discust ; 10 

Dispute and set a paradox, 

Like a straight boot, upon the stocks, 5 

And stretch it more unmercifully, 

Than Helmont, Montaigne, White, or Tully. 6 

1 That is, some men love disputing, as a bawd loves brandy. 

3 A pun, or jeu de mots, on cases of conscience. 

3 That is, their fiddles and violoncellos. 

* The old phrase was, to play a fit of mirth : the word fit often occurs 
in ancient ballads and metrical romances : it is generally applied to music, 
and signifies a division or part, for the convenience of the performers. 

6 That is, like a tight boot on a boot-tree. 

6 Van Helmont (the elder) was an eminent physician and naturalist, a 
warm opposer of the principles of Aristotle and Galen, and an enthusiastic 
student of chemistry ; born at Brussels, in 1588, and died 1664. His son, 
born in 1618, died 1699, was likewise versed in physic and chemistry, and 
celebrated for his paradoxes. Michael de Montaigne was born at Perigord, 
of a good family, 1533, died 1592. He was carefully but fancifully educated 
by his father, awakened every morning by strains of soft music, taught Latin 
by conversation, and Greek as an amusement. His Essays, however de- 
lightful, contain abundance of paradoxes and whimsical reflections. Thomas 
White (or Albius) was a zealous champion of the Church of Eome and the 
Aristotelian philosophy, and wrote against Joseph Glanville, who printed 
in LondoD, 1665, a book entitled, Scepsis Scientifica, or, Confessed Ignor- 
ance the Way to Science. He also wrote in defence of the peculiar notions 
of Sir Kenelm Digby, and is said to have been fond of dangerous singularities. 
He died in 1676. For Tully, whose character does not answer to the text, 



CANTO II.] HUDIBEAS. 173 

So th' ancient Stoics in the Porch, 15 

"With fierce dispute maintain'd their church, 

Beat out their brains in fight and study, 

To prove that virtue is a body ; l 

That boniiiii is an animal, 

Made good with stout polemic brawl ; 20 

In which some hundreds on the place 

"Were slain outright, 2 and many a face 

Eetrench'd of nose, and eyes, and beard, 

To maintain what their sect averr'd. 

All which the Knight and Squire in wrath, 25 

Had like t' have sufier'd for their faith ; 

Each striving to make good his own, 

As by the sequel shall be shown. 

The sun had long since, in the lap 3 
Of Thetis, taken out his nap, 30 

And like a lobster boil'd, the morn 
From black to red began to turn ; 4 



some late editions read Lully ; but the former has been retained with the 
author's corrected edition. If Butler meant Cicero he must allude to his 
Stoicorum Paradoxa, in which, for the exercise of his wit, Cicero defends 
some of the most extravagant doctrines of the Porch. 

1 The Stoics, who embraced all their doctrines as so many fixed and im- 
mutable truths from which it was infamous to depart, allowed of no incor- 
poreal substance, no medium between body and nothing. With them 
accidents and qualities, virtues and vices, and the passions of the mind, 
were corporeal. 

2 "We meet with the same account in Butler's Remains, vol. ii. 242. 
"This had been an excellent course for the old round-headed Stoics to find 
out whether bonum was corpus, or virtue an animal : about which they 
had so many fierce encounters in their Stoa, that about 1400 lost their lives 
on the place, and far many more their beards and teeth and noses." 
Grecian history does not record these brawls ; but Diogenes Laertius, in 
his life of Zcno, book vii. sect. 5, says, that this philosopher read his 
lectures in the Stoa or Portico, and hopes the place will be no more violated 
by civil seditions : for, adds he, when the Thirty Tyrants governed the re- 
public, 1400 citizens were killed there ; referring to the judicial murders 
committed there in 404-3, b. c, on the overthrow of the Athenian consti- 
tution. 

3 As far as Phoebus first does rise 
Until in Thetis' lap he lies. Sir Arthur Gorges. 

See also Virgil's Georgics, i. 446-7. 

4 Mr M. Bacon says, this simile is taken from Rabelais, who calls the 
lobster cardinalized, from the red habit which cardinals wear. 



174 HUDIBEAS. [PAET II, 

"When Hudibras, whom thoughts and aching 

'Twixt sleeping kept all night and waking, 

Began to rouse his drowsy eyes, 35 

And from his couch prepar'd to rise ; 

Besolving to despatch the deed 

He vow'd to do with trusty speed : 

But first, with knocking loud and bawling, 

He rous'd the Squire, in truckle lolling ; l 40 

And after many circumstances, ' 

Which vulgar authors in romances 

Do use to spend their time and wits on, 

To make impertinent description, 

They got, with much ado, to horse, 45 

And to the castle bent their course, 

In which he to the dame before 

To suffer whipping-duty swore : 2 

Where now arriv'd, and half unharnest, 

To carry on the work in earnest, 50 

He stopp'd and paus'd upon the sudden, 

And with a serious forehead plodding, 3 

Sprung a new scruple in his head, 

Which first he scratch'd, and after said ; 

Whether it be direct infringing 65 

An oath, if I should wave this swingeing, 

And what I've sworn to bear, forbear, 

And so b' equivocation swear ; 4 

1 See Don Quixote, Part ii. ch. 20. A truckle-bed is a little bed on 
wheels, which runs under a larger bed. 

5 Tn the first edition it is duly, but is corrected to duty in the Errata to 
the second edition of 1664. 

3 The Knight's " new scruple " is an excellent illustration of the quibbles 
by which unscrupulous consciences find excuses for violating oaths and 
promises. 

4 The equivocations and mental reservations of the Jesuits were loudly 
complained of, and by none more than by the Sectaries. When these last 
came into power, the Royalists had too often an opportunity, of bringing 
the same charge against them. Walker observes of me Independents, that 
they were tenable by no oaths, principles, promises, declarations, nor by 
any obligations or laws, divine or human. And Sanderson, in his " Obliga- 
tion of Promissory Oaths," says : " They rest secure, absolving themselves 
from all guilt and fear of perjury ; and think they have excellently provided 
for themselves and consciences, if, during the act of swearing, they can 
make any shift to defend themselves, either as the Jesuits do, with some 
equivocation, or mental reservation ; or by forcing upon the words some 



CASTO II.] HTTDIBEAS. . 175 

Or whether 't be a lesser sin 

To be forsworn, than act the thing, 60 

Are deep and subtle points, which must, 

T' inform my conscience, be discust ; 

In which to err a tittle may 

To errors infinite make way : 

And therefore I desire to know 65 

Thy judgment, ere we further go. 

Quoth Ealpho, Since you do injoin't. 
I shall enlarge upon the point ; 
And, for my own part, do not doubt 
Th' affirmative may be made out. 70 

But first, to state the case aright, 
For best advantage of our light ; 
And thus 'tis, whether 't be a sin, 
To claw and curry our own skin, 
Greater or less than to forbear, 75 

And that you are forsworn forswear. 
But first, o' th' first : The inward man, 
And outward, like a clan and clan, 
Have always been at daggers-drawing, 
And one another clapper-clawing : l 80 

Not that they really cuff or fence, 
But in a spiritual mystic sense ; 
"Which to mistake, and make them squabble, 
In literal fray's abominable ; 

'Tis heathenish, in frequent use, 85 

With Pagans and apostate Jews, 
To offer sacrifice of bridewells, 2 
Like modern Indians to their idols ; 3 

subtle interpretation ; or after they are sworn, they can find some loophole 
or artificial evasion ; whereby such art may be used with the oath, that, the 
words remaining, the meaning may be eluded with sophism, and the sense 
utterly lost." 

1 Alluding to the clans of Scotland, which have sometimes kept up a feud 
for many generations, and committed violent outrages on each other. The 
doctrine which the Independents and other sectaries held concerning the 
natural hostility between the inward and outward man, is frequently al- 
luded to. 

2 i. e. "Whipping, as administered in Bridewell, and similar houses of 
correction. 

3 The similarity of practice in this particular, between the scourging 
sects of heathen Indians and the flagellants of the Romish Church, is forcibly 



176 HTJDIBBAS. [PAST II. 

And mongrel Christian of our times, 

That expiate less with greater crimes, 90 

And call the foul abomination, 

Contrition and Mortification. 

Is't not enough we're bruis'd and kicked 

With sinful members of the wicked ; 

Our vessels, that are sanctify'd, 95 

Profan'd and curry'd back and side ; 

But we must claw ourselves with shameful 

And heathen stripes, by their example ? 

Which, were there nothing to forbid it, 

Is impious, because they did it : 100 

This therefore may be justly reckon'd 

A heinous sin. Now to the second ; 

That Saints may claim a dispensation 

To swear and forswear' on occasion, 

I doubt not but it will appear 105 

With pregnant light : the point is clear. 

Oaths are but words, and words but wind, 1 

Too feeble implements to bind ; 

And hold with deeds proportion, so 

As shadows to a substance do. 110 

Then when they strive for place, 'tis fit 

The weaker vessel should submit. 

Although your church be opposite 

To ours, as Black Friars are to White, 

In rule and order, yet I grant 115 

Tou are a reformado saint ; 2 

And what the saints do claim as due, 

Tou may pretend a title to : 

pointed out ; and, at the same time, a favourite argument of the Puritans, 
that whatever was Romish was ipso facto sinful, is equally well ridi- 
culed. 

1 Such have "lovers' vows " always been represented. The vows of self- 
chastisement, from which the Knight seeks self-absolution, was a lover's 
vow. But the general strain of satire is against elastic consciences and 
easy absolution, whether catholic or sectarian. See Tibullus, Eleg. iv. 17, 
18. 

2 That is, as being a Presbyterian, a quondam saint, not then in the en- 
joyment of the pay and privileges of sainthood, as the Independents were. 
Reformadoes were officers degraded from their command, but who retained 
their rank. (Wright's Diet, sub voc.) See Part iii. c. ii. line 91. 



JA2JT0 II.] HTJDIBRAS. 177 

But saints, whom oaths or vows oblige, 

Know little of their privilege ; 120 

Further, I mean, than carrying on 

Some self-advantage of their own : 

For if the devil, to serve his turn, 

Can tell truth ; why the saints should scorn, 

"When it serves theirs, to swear and lie, 125 

I think there's little reason why : 

Else h' has a greater power than they, 

"Which 'twere impiety to say. 

We're not commanded to forbear, 

Indefinitely, at all to swear ; 130 

But to swear idly, and in vain, 

Without self-interest or gain. 

For breaking of an oath and lying, 

Is but a kind of self-denying, 

A saint-like virtue ; and from hence 135 

Some have broke oaths by Providence. 1 

Some, to the glory of the Lord, 

Perjur'd themselves, and broke their word : 2 

And this the constant rule and practice 

Of all our late apostles' acts is. 140 

Was not the Cause at first begun 

With perjury, and carried on ? 

Was there an oath the godly took, 

But in due time and place they broke ? 3 

1 That is, by the direction of the spirit, which was commonly assumed as 
an excuse for violating oaths. When it was first moved in the House to pro- 
ceed capitally against the king, Cromwell stood up and told them : " That if 
any man moved this with design, he should think him the greatest traitor 
in the world ; but since Providence and necessity had cast them upon it, 
he should pray to God to bless their counsels." 

2 "The rebel army," says South, "in their several treaties with the 
king, being asked by him whether they would stand to such and such 
agreements and promises, still answered, that they would do as the spirit 
should direct them. Whereupon that blessed prince would frequently 
condole his hard fate, that he had to do with persons to whom the spirit 
dictated one thing one day, and commanded the clean contrary the next." 
Harrison, Carew, and others, when tried for the part they took in the 
king's death, professed they had acted out of conscience to the Lord. 

3 The Covenanters, to accommodate their " Large Declaration " to the 
scruples of the Presbyterians in the matter of Episcopacy,inserted, " That the 
swearer is neither obliged to the meaning of the prescribed oath nor his 



178 HTTDIBKAS. [PAM II. 

Did we not bring our oaths in first, 145 

Before our plate, to have them burst, 

And east in fitter models, for 

The present use of church and war ? 

Did not our worthies of the House, 

Before they broke the peace, break vows ? 150 

For having freed us first from both 

Th' Alleg'ance and Suprem'cy oath, 1 

Did they not next compel the nation 

To take, and break the Protestation ? 2 

To swear, and after to recant, 3 155 

The Solemn League and Covenant ? 4 

To take th' Engagement, and disclaim it, 5 

Enforc'd by those who first did frame it ? 

own meaning, but as the authority shall afterwards interpret it." The swear- 
ing and unswearing, which Butler satirizes, is one of the numerous paral 
lels between the Great Rebellion and the French Revolution, only in the 
latter case the oaths were taken to a far more imposing array of Consti- 
tutions. Talleyrand's oaths of this sort would have made the boldest 
Parliamentary swearer seem nought. 

1 Though they did not in formal and express terms abrogate these oaths 
of allegiance and supremacy till after the king's death, yet in effect they 
vacated and annulled them, by administering the king's power, and substi- 
tuting other oaths, protestations, and covenants. 

2 In the Protestation they promised to defend the true reformed religion, 
as expressed in the doctrine of the Church of England ; which was presently 
afterwards disclaimed in the Covenant. Ultimately the Covenant itself was 
altogether renounced by the Independents. 

3 And to recant is but to cant again, says Sir Roger L'Estrange. 

4 In the Solemn League and Covenant (called a league, because it was 
to be a bond of amity and confederation between the kingdoms of England 
and Scotland ; and the covenant, because it was in form a covenant with 
God) they swore to defend the person and authority of the king, and cause 
the world to behold their fidelity ; and that they would not, in the least, 
diminish his just power and greatness. The Presbyterians, who held by 
the Covenant so far as it upheld their church, contrived to evade this part 
of it by saying they had sworn to defend the person and authority of the 
king in support of religion and public liberty, and not when they were in- 
compatible with each other. But the Independents, who were at last the 
prevailing party, utterly renounced the Covenant. Copies of the Covenant, 
subscribed by the Minister and Parishioners, remain in many Parochial 
Registers, and in some the place for the Minister's name is blank, — he, 
perhaps, expecting some change, in which it might not be well for him to 

• have signed it. 

5 After the death of the king a new oath, which they call the Engage- 
ment, bound every man to be true and faithful to the government then 
established, without a king or House of Peez - s. 



0A2TTO IT.] HUDIBEAS. 170 

Did they not swear, at first, to fight l 

For the king's safety and his right ? 160 

And after march'd to find him out, 

And charg'd him home with horse and foot ? 

And yet still had the confidence 

To swear it was in his defence ? 

Did they not swear to live and die 16-5 

"With Essex, and straight laid him by ? 2 

If that were all, for some have swore 

As false as they, if th' did no more. 3 

Did they not swear to maintain law, 

In which that swearing made a flaw ? 1 70 

For Protestant religion vow, 

That did that vowing disallow ? 

For privilege of Parliament, 

In which that swearing made a rent ? 

And since, of all the three, not one 4 175 

Is left in being, 'tis well known. 

Did they not swear, in express words, 

To prop and back the House of Lords ? 

And after turn'd out the whole house-full 

Of peers, as dang'rou3 and unuseful. 6 ISO 

So Cromwell, with deep oaths and vows, 

Swore all the Commons out o' th' House : 6 



1 Cromwell, when he first mustered his troop, sincerely enough perhaps 
declared that he would not deceive them hy perplexed or involved expres- 
sions, in his commission, to fight "for the king and Parliament;" and 
that he would as soon fire his pistol at the king as at any one else. 

2 "When the Parliament first took up arms, and the earl of Essex was 
chosen general, the members of both Houses declared that they would 
live and die with him. Yet the chief object of the self-denying ordinance 
was to remove him from the command. 

3 Clarendon says, that many of Essex's friends believed he was poisoned. 
(Vol. ill. b. 10.) 

* Namely, law, religion, and privilege of Parliament. 

5 "When the army began to proceed against the king, in order to keep 
the Lords quiet, a distinct promise was made to maintain their privileges, 
&c. But no sooner was the king beheaded, than it was resolved that the 
House of Peers was useless, and ought to be abolished, which it was ac- 
cordingly. 

s After the king's party was utterly overthrown, Cromwell, who all along 
it is supposed aimed at the supreme power, persuaded the Parliament to 
send part of their army into Ireland, and to disband the rest, which the 
n 2 



180 HUDIBRAS. [PAST II. 

Vow'd that the red-coats would disband, 

Ay, marry wou'd they, at their command; 

And troll' d them on, and swore and swore, 185 

Till th' army turn'd them out of door. 

This tells us plainly what they thought, 

That oaths and swearing go for nought ; l 

And that by them th' were only meant 

To serve for an expedient. 2 IOC 

What was the Public Faith found out for, 3 ^ 

But to slur men of what they fought for ? 

The Public Paith, which ev'ry one 

Is bound t' observe, yet kept by none ; 4 

And if that go for nothing, why 19c 

Should private faith have such a tie ? 

Oaths were not purpos'd, more than law, 

To keep the good and just in awe, 5 



Presbyterians in the House were forward to do. And Cromwell, to lull the 
Parliament, called God to witness, that he was sure the army would, at their 
command, disband and cast their arms at their feet : and he again solemnly 
swore, that he had rather himself and his whole family should be consumed, 
than that the army should break out into sedition. The army, however, 
did not throw down their arms ; but finding that (as they said) all they 
were to get for these victories was " a piece of paper," and that Parlia- 
■ ment intended to make itself perpetual, they marched on London, and in 
the end, headed by Cromwell, turned the Parliament out of doors. 

1 Sir Roger L' Estrange has put this into the moral of his Fable (No. 61), 
" that in a certain place, the people were only sworn not to dress meat in 
Lent, and so might do what they pleased, but," says the speaker, "for us 
who are bound that would be our undoing." 

2 Expedient was a term often used by the sectaries. When the mem- 
bers of the Council of State engaged to approve of what should be done by 
the Commons in Parliament for the future, it was ordered to draw up an 
expedient for the Members to subscribe. 

3 It was usual to pledge the Public Faith, as they called it, by which 
they meant the credit of Parliament, or their own promises, for monies 
borrowed, and many times never repaid. Ralph argues that if the public 
faith be broken with impunity, private faith could not be considered bind- 

4 " Resolved that the Public Faith be buried in everlasting forgetfulness, 
and that John Goodwin do preach its funeral sermon from Tothill Fields to 
"Whitechapel ; " says Sir John Birkenhead, in his "Paul's Church Yard" 
(Cent. 3, p. 20). 

5 The reference is to 1 Timothy i. 9. " Knowing this, that the law is not 
ma'de for a righteous man, but for . the lawless and disobedient." And 
Colonel Overton averred that the Presbyterians held this literally. 



CA>"TO IT.] HUDIBKAS. 181 

"But to confine the bad and sinful, 

Like mortal cattle in a pinfold. 200 

A saint's of th' heav'nly realm a peer; 1 

And as no peer is bound to swear, 

But on the gospel of his honour, 

Of which he may dispose as owner, 

It follows, tho' the thing be forgery 205 

And false th' affirm, it is no perjury, 

But a mere ceremony, and a breach 

Of nothing, but a form of speech, 

And goes for no more when 'tis took 

Than mere saluting of the book. 2 210 

Suppose the Scriptures are of force, 

They're but commissions of course, 3 

And saints have freedom to digress, 

But vary from 'em as they please ; 

Or misinterpret them by private 215 

Instructions, to all aims they drive at. 

Then why should we ourselves abridge, 

And curtail our own privilege ? 

Quakers, that like to lantkorns, bear 

Their light within them, will not swear ; 220 

Their gospel is an accidence, 

By which they construe conscience, 4 

And hold no sin so deeply red 

As that of breaking Priseian's head, 5 

1 Butler cleverly puts this two-edged sarcasm into the mouth of one of 
those who turned out the peers. 

2 As one in a fable of L'Estrange (pt. 2, fab. 2270 savs — For the swear- 
ing, what signifies the kissing of a book, with a calves' skin cover and a 
pasteboard stiffening betwixt a man's lips and the text ? 

3 This is, they strained the interpretation of Scripture to their own pur- 
poses, just as the Parliament officers took the liberty of disobeying their 
commissions, on pretence of private instructions or expediency. "They 
professed their conscience to be the rule and symbol of their faith, "says 
Clement Walker, " and to this they conform the Scriptures, not their con- 
sciences to the Scriptures ; setting the sun-dial by the clock, not the clock 
by the sun-dial." 

i The Quakers interpret Scripture literally, and also insist upon correctly 
using thou in the singular number instead of the plural you, whence Butler 
charges them with turning the gospel into an English Grammar, and re- 
garding an ungrammatical conventionality as a great offence. 

6 Priscian being the acknowledged authority if not the founder of gram- 



182 HTTDIBBAS. [PABT II. 

The head and founder of their order, 225 

That stirring hats held worse than murder ; * 

These thinking they're oblig'd to troth 

In swearing, will not take an oath ; 

Like mules, Avho if they've not the will 

To keep their own pace, stand stock still ; 2 230 

But they are weak, and little know 

"What free-born consciences may do. 

'Tis the temptation of the devil 

That makes all human actions evil : 

For saints may do the same thing by . 235 

The spirit, in sincerity, 

Which other men are tempted to, 

And at the devil's instance do ; 

And yet the actions be contrary, 

Just as the saints and wicked vary. 240 

For as on land there is no beast 

But in some fish at sea's exprest ; 3 

So in the wicked there's no vice, 

Of which the saints have not a spice ; 

Aud yet that thing that's pious in 245 

The one, in th' other is a sin. 4 

mar, it is said to break his head to use false grammar, that is, you in the 
singular number. George Fox, the founder of the order of Quakers, may 
be regarded as their Priscian. He wrote what may be called an acci- 
dence, entitled, " A Battle Door for Teachers and Professors to learn Plural 
and Singular," 1660, folio. 

1 Nash thinks that the poet humorously supposes Priscian, who received 
so many blows on the head, to be exceedingly averse to taking off his hat ; 
and therefore calls bim the founder of Quaker-ism. 

2 A merry fellow, says Bishop Parker, finding all force and proclamations 
vain for the dispersion of a conventicle, hit upon the stratagem of proclaim- 
ing, in the king's name, that none should depart without his leave ; where- 

'upon every one went away that it might not be said they obeyed any 
man. 

3 Thus Dubartas : 

So many fishes of so many features, 
That in the waters we may see all creatures, 
Even all that on the earth are to be found, 
As if the world were in deep waters drown'd. 
This was one of the whimsical speculations with which the curious 

entertained themselves before the existence of scientific natural history. 

See Sir Thomas Browne, Vulgar Errors (Bohn's edit. p. 344). 

4 The Antinomian principle was that believers or persons regenerate 



CANTO II.] HTJDIBBAS. 183 

Is't not ridiculous, and nonsense, 

A saint should be a slave to conscience ? 

That ought to be above such fancies, 

As far as above ordinances ? l 250 

She's of the wicked, as I guess, 2 

B' her looks, her language, and her dress : 

And tho', like constables, we search 

For false wares one another's church ; 

Yet all of us hold this for true, 255 

No faith is to the wicked due. 3 

For truth is precious and divine, 

Too rich a pearl for carnal swine. 

Quoth Hudibras, All this is true, 
Tet 'tis not fit that all men knew 260 

Those mysteries and revelations : 4 
And therefore topical evasions 
Of subtle turns, and shifts of sense, 
Serve best with th' wicked for pretence ; 
Such as the learned Jesuits use, 5 265 

And Presbyterians, for excuse 

could not sin, though they committed the same acts which were sins in 
others ; or, in other words, that the condition of the person determined 
the character of his acts, and made them good or bad, and not the 
acts which displayed the character of the man ; so that one not pre- 
viously wicked could commit no wickedness. 

1 Some sectaries, especially the Seekers and Mugglctonians, thought 
themselves so sure of salvation, that they deemed it needless to conform 
to ordinances, human or divine. 

8 Hence it may he concluded that the widow was a royalist. 

3 This is the famous popish maxim, Nulla fides servanda hereticis, here 
attributed to the puritan sectaries. Ralph, suspecting the widow to be a 
royalist, insinuates that it is not necessary to keep faith with her. 

4 Private or esoteric doctrines, which may be called mysterious, mean 
that what is publicly professed and taught is not what the teachers mean. 

5 Mr Foulis tells a good story about Jesuitical evasions ; a little before 
the death of Queen Elizabeth, when the Jesuits were endeavouring to set 
aside King James, a little book was written, entitled, a Treatise on Equivo- 
cation, which was afterwards called by Garnet, Provincial of the Jesuits, a 
Treatise against Lying and Dissimulation, which contained the following 
example. In time of the plague a man goes to Coventry ; at the gates he is 
examined upon oath whether he came from London : the traveller, though 
he directly came from thence, may swear positively that he did not, because 
he knows himself not infected, and does not endanger Coventry ; which he 



184 HTJDIBBAS. [PART II. 

Against the Protestants, when th' happen 

To find their churches taken napping. 

As thus : a breach of oath is duple, 

And either way admits a scruple, 270 

And may be, ex parte of the maker, 

More criminal than the injur'd taker ; 

For he that strains too far a vow, 

Will break it, like an o'er-bent bow : 

And he that made, and forc'd it, broke it, 275 

Not he that for convenience took it. 

A broken oath is, quatenus oath, 

As sound t' all purposes of troth, 

As broken laws are ne'er the worse, 

Nay, 'till they're broken, have no force. 280 

What's justice to a man, or laws, 

That never comes within their claws ? 

They have no pow'r, but to admonish ; 

Cannot control, coerce, or punish, 

Until they're broken, and then touch 285 

Those only that do make them such. 

Beside, no engagement is allow' d, 

By men in prison made, for good ; l 

For when they're set at liberty, 

They're from th' engagement too set free. 290 

The Babbius write, when any Jew 

Did make to God or man a vow, 

Which afterwards he found untoward, 

And stubborn to be kept, or too hard ; 

Any three other Jews o' th' nation 295 

Might free him from the obligation : 2 

supposes to answer the final intent of the demand. The MS. was seized 
hy Sir Edward Coke, in Sir Thomas Tresham's chamber, in the Inner 
Temple, and is now in the Bodleian Library, at Oxford, MS. Laud. E. 45, 
with the attestation in Sir Edward Coke's hand- writing, 6 December, 1605, 
and the following motto : Os quod mentitur occidit animam. 

1 See the history of the Treaty of Newport with Charles I., for ample 
proof of the employment of this mode of reasoning. 

2 There is a traditional doctrine among the Jews, which Maimonides 
asserts to have come down from Moses, though not in the written law, that 
if any person has made a vow, which he afterwards wishes to recall, he may 
go to a Rabbi, or three other men, and if he can prove to them that no injury 
will be sustained by any one, they may free him from its obligation. 



CANTO II.] HUDIBHAS. 1S5 

And have not two saints power to use 

A greater privilege than three Jews ? 1 

The court of conscience, which in man 

Should he supreme and sovereign, 300 

Is't fit should be subordinate 

To ev'ry petty court i' th' state, 

And have less power than the lesser, 

To deal with perjury at pleasure ? 

Have its proceedings disallow'd, or 305 

Allow' d, at fancy of Pie-powder ? 2 

Tell all it does, or does not know, 

For swearing ex officio ? 3 

Be forc'd t' impeach a broken hedge, 

And pigs unring'd at vis. franc, pledge ? 4 310 

Discover thieves, and bawds, recusants, 

Priests, witches, eves-droppers, and nuisance : 

Tell who did play at games unlawful, 

And who fill'd pots of ale but half-full ; 

And have no pow'r at all, nor shift, 315 

To help itself at a dead lift ? 

1 Butler told one Mr Veal, that by the two saints he meant Dr Downing 
and Mr Marshall, who, when some of the rebels had their lives spared on 
condition that they would not in future bear arms against the king, were 
sent to dispense with the oath, and persuade them to enter again into the 
service. 

2 The court of pie-powder takes cognizance of such disputes as arise in 
fairs and markets ; and is so called from the old French word pied-puldreaux, 
which signifies a pedlar, one who gets a livelihood without a fixed or 
certain residence. See Blackstone's Commentaries. In the borough laws 
of Scotland, an alien merchant is called pied-puldreaux. 

3 That is, by taking the ex officio oath; by which the parties were 
obliged to answer to interrogatories, even if they criminated themselves. 
In the conference, 1604, one of the matters complained of was the ex officio 
oath. The Lord Chancellor, Lord Treasurer, and Archbishop Whitgift 
defended the oath, and the king gave a description of it, laid down the 
grounds upon which it stood, and justified the wisdom of the constitution. 

4 Frankpledge was an institution derived from the earliest Saxon times, 
and based upon the principle of mutual responsibility. By it Lords of the 
manor had the right of requiring surety of every free-born man of the age 
of 14, for his good behaviour, and they were bound for each other. After 
the Conquest, where frankpledge prevailed, there were periodical meetings, 
when it was put in exercise, and these were called the View of frank- 
pledge (visus franc ipler/ii). Selden says, that the View of frankpledge 
was not wholly unknown in his time ; which shows the point of Butler's 
allusion to it. See Blackstone and the Law Dictionaries. 



186 HUDIBRAS. [part II 

Why should not conscience have vacation 

As well as other courts o' th' nation ? 

Have equal power to adjourn, 

Appoint appearance and retorn ? 320 

And make as nice distinctions serve 

To split a case ; as those that carve, 

Invoking cuckolds' names, hit joints ? ' 

Why should not tricks as slight, do points ? 

Is not th' High Court of Justice sworn 325 

To just that law that serves their turn ? 2 

Make their own jealousies high treason, 

And fix them whomsoe'er they please on ? 

Cannot the learned counsel there 

Make laws in any shape appear ? 330 

Mould 'em as witches do their clay, 

When they make pictures to destroy ? 3 

And vex them into any form 

That fits their purpose to do harm ? 

Eack them until they do confess, 4 335 

Impeach of treason whom they please, 

1 Our ancestors, when they found a difficulty in carving a goose, hare, or 
other dish, used to say in jest, that they should hit the joint if they could 
think of the name of a cuckold. Kyrle, the man of Eoss, had always 
company to dine with him on market day, and a goose, if it could be pro- 
cured, was one of the dishes, which he claimed the privilege of carving 
himself. When any guest, ignorant of the etiquette of the table, offered to 
save him that trouble, he would exclaim, " Hold your hand, man, if I am 
good for anything, it is for hitting cuckolds' joints." The British Apollo 
(vol. ii. No. 59, 1708) explains the origin of this saying, to be "the equal 
celebrity of one Thomas Webb, carver to the Lord Mayor, in the days of 
Charles I., both in his office, and as a cuckold." 

2 The High Court of Justice was first instituted for the trial of King 
Charles I., but its authority was afterwards extended in regard to some of his 
adherents, to the year 1658. As it had no statute or precedents, its de- 
terminations were based solely on what best served the turn. Walker says, 
" should they vote a turd to be a rose, or Oliver's nose a ruby, they expect 
we should swear it and fight for it : this legislative den of thieves create 
new courts of justice, neither founded upon law nor prescription." 

3 It was supposed that witches, by forming the image of any one in wax 
or clay, and sticking pins into it, or putting it to other torture, could cause 
the death of the person represented. Dr Dee records several such supposed 
enchantments. 

4 It was one of the charges against the Parliament, that they had al- 
lowed the adherents of the king to be put to the rack in Ireland. The 



CANTO IX.] HUDIBRAS. 187 

And most perfidiously condemn 

Those that engag'd their lives for them ?• 

And yet do nothing in their own sense 

But what they ought by oath and conscience. 340 

Can they not juggle, and with slight 

Conveyance play with wrong and right ; 

And sell their blasts of wind as dear, 2 

As Lapland witches bottled air ? 3 

"Will not fear, favour, bribe, and grudge, 345 

The same case sev'ral ways adjudge ? 

As seamen, with the self-same gale, 

Will sev'ral different courses sail ; 

As when the sea breaks o'er its bounds, 4 

And overflows the level grounds, 350 

Those banks and dams, that, like a screen, 

Did keep it out, now keep it in ; 

So when tyrannical usurpation 5 

Invades the freedom of a nation, 

The laws o' th' land that were intended 355 

To keep it out, are made defend it. 

Does not in Chanc'ry ev'ry man swear 

"What makes best for him in his answer ? 6 

soldiers were said to have used torture to gentlemen's servants in order to 
extort information concerning their masters' property. 

1 This they did in many instances ; the most remarkable were those of 
Sir John Hotham and his son, who were condemned notwithstanding that 
they had previously shut the gates of Hull against the King, and the case 
of Sir Alexander Carew. 

2 That is, their breath, their pleading, their arguments. 

3 The witches in Lapland pretended to sell bags of wind to the sailors, 
which would carry them to whatever quarter they pleased. See Olaus 
Magnus. 

4 This simile may be found in prose in Butler's Remains, vol. i. p. 298 : 
" For as when the sea breaks over its bounds and overflows the land, 
those dams and banks that were made to keep it out do afterwards serve to 
keep it in ; so when tyranny and usurpation break in upon the common 
right and freedom, the laws of God and of the land are abused, to support 
that which they were intended to oppose." 

5 Var. "Tyrannick usurpation," after 1700. 

6 A hit at the common forms of Chancery practice. But Grey thinks the 
poet has in mind the joke propagated by Sir Roger L'Estrange, Fable 61. 
" A gentleman that had a suit in Chancery was called upon by his counsel 
to put in his answer, for fear of incurring a contempt. Well, says the 
Cavalier, and why is not my answer put in then ? How should I draw your 



188 HUDIBEAS. [PART II 

Is not the winding up witnesses, 1 

And nicking, more than half the bus'ness ? 360 

For witnesses, like watches, go 

Just as they're set, too fast or slow ; 

And where in conscience they're strait-lac'd, 

'Tis ten to one that side is cast. 

Do not your juries give their verdict 365 

As if they felt the cause, not heard it ? 

And as they please make matter o' fact 

Run all on one side as they're packt? 

Nature has made man's breast no windores, 

To publish what he does within-doors ; 370 

Nor what dark secrets there inhabit, 

Unless his own rash folly blab it. 

If oaths can do a man no good 

In his own bus'ness, why they shou'd 

In other matters do him hurt, 375 

I think there's little reason for't. 

He that imposes an oath makes it, 2 

Not he that for convenience takes it : 

Then how can any man be said 

To break an oath he never made ? 380 

These reasons may perhaps look oddly 

To th' wicked, tho' they evince the godly ; 

But if they will not serve to clear 

My honour, I am ne'er the near. 

Honour is like that glassy bubble, 385 

That finds philosophers such trouble ; 

"Whose least part crack'd, the whole does fly, 

And wits are crack'd to find out why. 3 

answer, saith the Lawyer, without knowing what you can swear ? Pox on 
your scruples, says the client again, pray do your part of a lawyer and draw 
me a sufficient answer ; and let me alone to do the part of a gentleman, and 
swear it." 

1 These lines, thanks to the "vitality" of English law, are as se- 
verely satirical now as they were two hundred years ago. 

2 This and the following are two of the best remembered and oftenest 
quoted lines of Hudibras. See line 275, above, where the same thought is 



This glassy bubble is the well-known Prince Rupert's drop, so called 
ause the prince first introduced the knowledge of it to this country. It 
is of common glass, in size and shape like the accompanying figure ; and 



CANTO II.] HUDIBRAS. 189 

Quoth Kalpho, Honour's but a word 
To swear by only in a lord : l 390 

In other men 'tis but a huff 
To vapour with, instead of proof; 
That like a wen looks big and swells, 
Is senseless, and just nothing else. 2 

Let it, quoth he, be what it will, 395 

It has the world's opinion still. 
But as men are not wise, that run 
The slightest hazard they may shun ; 
There may a medium be found out 
To clear to all the world the doubt ; 400 

And that is, if a man may do't, 
By proxy whipp'd, or substitute. 3 

Though nice and dark the point appear, 
Quoth Ralph, it may hold up and clear. 
That sinners may supply the place 405 

Of suffering saints, is a plain case. 
Justice gives sentence, many times, 
On one man for another's crimes. 

its peculiar properties are, that it will sustain without injury very heavy 
blows upon the body, D, E ; but if broken at B, or C, the whole drop will 
ourst into powder with great violence. If the tip, A, be broken off, the 




bubble will not burst. They are described in Beckmann's History of In- 
ventions (Bohn's Edit. vol. ii. p. 241, &c). The cause of their peculiarities 
rendered them a great puzzle to the curious. 

1 Peers, when they give judgment, are not sworn : they say only, upon 
my honour. See lines 262, 263, above. 

3 Balpho was much of FalstafPs opinion with regard to honour. See 
Henry IV. Part I. Act v. sc. 1. 

3 We are told in the Tatler, No. 92, " that pages are chastised for the 
admonition of princes." See an account of Mr Murray of the bed-cham- 
ber, who was whipping-boy to King Charles I., in Burnet's Own Times 
(Bohn's edit. p. 99). Henry IV. of France, when absolved of his excom- 
munication and heresy by Pope Clement VIII., received chastisement in 
the persons of his representatives, Messrs D'Ossat and Du Perron, after- 
wards Cardinals. 



190 HUDIBRAS. [PAET II. 

Our brethren of New England use 

Choice malefactors to excuse, 1 410 

And hang the guiltless in their stead, 

Of whom the churches have less need. 

As lately 't happen'd : in a town 

There liv'd a cooler, and but one, 

That out of doctrine could cut use, 415 

And mend men's lives as well as shoes. 

This precious brother having. slain, 

In times of peace, an Indian, 

Not out of malice, but mere zeal, 2 

Because he was an infidel, 420 

The mighty Tottipottimoy 3 

Sent to our elders an envoy, 

Complaining sorely of the breach 

Of league, held forth by brother Patch, 

Against the articles in force 425 

Between both churches, his and ours ; 

For which he crav'd the saints to render 

Into his hands, or hang th' offender : 

But they maturely having weigh' d 

They had no more but him o' th' trade ; 430 

A man that serv'd them in a double 

Capacity, to teach and cobble ; 

Besolv'd to spare him : yet to do 

The Indian Hoghan Moghan too 

1 This story is asserted to be true, in the note subjoined to the early 
editions. A similar one is related by Grey, from Morton's English Ca- 
naan, printed 1637- A lusty young fellow was condemned to be hanged 
for stealing corn ; but it was formally proposed in council to execute a bed- 
ridden old man in the offender's clothes, which would satisfy appearances, 
and preserve a useful member to society. Grey mentions likewise a letter 
from the committee of Stafford to Speaker Lenthall, dated Aug. 5, 1645, 
desiring a respite for Henry Steward, a soldier under the governor of 
Hartlebury Castle, aud offering two Irishmen to be executed in his stead. 
Ealpho calls them his brethren of New England, because the inhabitants 
there were generally Independents. 

2 Just so, says Grey, Ap Evans acted, who murdered his mother and 
his brother for kneeling at the Sacrament, alleging that this was idolatry. 

3 This is not a real name, but merely a ludicrous imitation of the sonorous 
appellations of the Indian Sachems ; as is the other name in line 434, 
below. 



CANTO II.] HUDIBKAS. .191 

Impartial justice, in his stead did 435 

Hang an old weaver that was hed-rid : 

Then wherefore may not yon be skipp'd, 

And in your room another whipp'd ? 

For all philosophers, hut the Sceptic, 1 

Hold whipping may be sympathetic. 440 

It is enough, quoth Hudibras, 
Thou hast resolv'd, and clear' d the case ; 
And canst, in conscience, not refuse, 
From thy own doctrine, to raise use : 2 
I know thou wilt not, for my sake, 445 

Be tender-conscienc'd of thy back : 
Then strip thee of thy carnal jerkin, 
And give thy outward fellow a firking ; 
For when thy vessel is new hoop'd, 
All leaks of sinning will be stopp'd. 450 

Quoth Ealpho, You mistake the matter, 
For in all scruples of this nature, 
No man includes himself, nor turns 
The point upon his own concerns. 
As no man of his own self catches 455 

The itch, or amorous French aches ; 3 
So no man does himself convince, 
By his own doctrine, of his sins : 
And though all cry down self, none means 
His own self in a literal sense : 460 

Besides, it is not only foppish, 
But vile, idolatrous, and popish, 
For one man out of his own skin 
To firk and whip another's sin ; 4 

1 The Sceptics, -who held that certainty was not attainable on any sub- 
ject, and doubted sensation altogether, are here wittily satirized as refusing 
to assent to Ralpho's doctrine of sympathetic whipping. The philosophers 
who believed in it were Sir Kenelm Digby, often the theme of Butler's 
banter, and some then credulous members of the Royal Society. 

2 A favourite expression of the sectaries of those days. 

3 The old pronunciation of this word was aitches, and the late John 
Kemble to the day of his death insisted on so pronouncing it ; for which 
he was frequently ridiculed. 

1 A banter on the popish doctrine of satisfaction and supererogation. 



192 



[PAET II. 



As pedants out of school-boys' breeches 465 

Do claw and curry their own itches. 1 

But in this case it is profane, 

And sinful too, because in vain ; 

Eor we must take our oaths upon it 

You did the deed, when I have done- it. 470 

Quoth Hudibras, That's answer'd soon; 
Give us the whip, we'll lay it on. 

Quoth Ralpho, That you may swear true, 
'Twere properer that I whipp'd you ; 
For when with your consent 'tis done, . 475 

The act is really your own. 

Quoth Hudibras, It is in vain, 
I see, to argue 'gainst the grain ; 
Or, like the stars, incline men to 
What they're averse themselves to do : 480 

For when disputes are weary'd out, 
'Tis interest still resolves the doubt : 
But since no reason can confute ye, 
I'll try to force you to your duty ; 
For so it is, howe'er you mince it ; 485 

As, ere we part, I shall evince it, 
And curry, if you stand out, whether 2 
Tou will or no, your stubborn leather. 
Canst thou refuse to bear thy part 
I' th' public work, base as thou art ? 490 

To higgle thus, for a few blows, 3 
To gain thy Knight an op'lent spouse, 
"Whose wealth his bowels yearn to purchase, 
Merely for th' int'rest of the churches ? 
And when he has it in his claws, 495 

"Will not be hide-bound to the Cause ; 

1 In Spectator, No. 157, are to be found remarks illustrative of this pe- 
culiarity of pedagogues. 

2 Grey observes that a contest between Don Quixote and bis renowned 
squire appears to have furnished the pattern for this amusing falling out 
(see chaps. 35 and 60). But there is more intellectual subtlety in the ar- 
gumentation of Butler's heroes than in the Don and Sancho. 

3 See Don Quixote, chap. 68, for the like reproaches administered by 
the knight to his squire. 



CA>~TO II.] HUDIBBAS. 193 

Nor shalt thou find hira a curmudgin, 1 

If thou dispatch it without grudging : 

If not, resolve, before we go, 

That you and I must pull a crow. 2 500 

Ye'ad best, quoth Ealpho, as the ancients 3 
Say wisely, have a care o' th' main chance, 
And look before you, ere you leap ; 
For as you sow y' are like to reap : 
And were y' as good as G-eorge-a-green, 4 505 

I should make bold to turn agen ; 
Nor am I doubtful of the issue 
In a just quarrel, as mine is so. 
Is 't fitting for a man of honour 

To whip the saints, like Bishop Bonner ? 5 510 

A knight t' usurp the beadle's office, 
For which y' are like to raise brave trophies ? 
But I advise you, not for fear, 
But for your own sake, to forbear ; 
And for the churches, which may chance 515 

From hence, to spring a variance, 
And raise among themselves new scruples, 
Whom common danger hardly couples, 
Remember how in arms and politics, 
"We still have worsted all your holy tricks ; s 520 

1 A niggardly churl. The derivation from cceur mechant, obtained by 
Dr Johnson from an " unknown correspondent," and Ash's mistake in as- 
suming this signature to be a translation of the French words, is one of 
the best etymological jokes extant. 

2 See Handbook of Proverbs, p. 155. 

3 Ealpho, like Sancho, deals largely in proverbs ; — these are found and 
explained in Handbook of Proverbs, pp. 113, 323. 

4 This is no other than the Pinder of Wakefield, who fought and beat 
Robin Hood, Scarlet, and Little John, all three together. See Robin 
Hood's Garland. The Pinder was no outlaw, as Nash supposes, but an 
officer to enforce the law, being the keeper of the parish pound. 

5 Bishop of London in the reign of Queen Mary, who is said to have 
whipped the Protestants, imprisoned on account of their faith, with his own 
hands, till he was tired with the violence of the exercise. Hume's History 
of Mary, p. 378 ; Fox, Acts and Monuments, ed. 1576, p. 1937. 

6 The Independents, by their dexterity in intrigue and getting the army 
on their side, outwitted and overpowered the Presbyterians, who intended 
simply to instal themselves in the place of the Church of England. These 
lines record, for the most part, plain and well-known historical facts. 
See Burnet and others. 



194 HUDIBEAS. [PAET II. 

Trepann'd your party with intrigue, 

And took your grandees down a peg ; . 

New-modell'd the army, and cashier'd 

All that to Legion Smec adher'd; 1 

Made a mere utensil o' your church, 525 

And after left it in the lurch ; 

A scaffold to huild up our own, 

And when w' had done with 't, pull'd it down ; 

Capoch'd 2 your rahbins of the Synod, 3 

And snapp'd their canons with a why-not. 530 

Grave synod-men, that were rever'd 

For solid face, and depth of beard, 

Their Classic model prov'd a maggot, 

Their Direct'ry an Indian pagod ; 4 

And drown' d their discipline like a kitten, 535 

On which they 'd been so long a sitting ; 5 

Decry' d it as a holy cheat, 

Grown out of date, and obsolete, 

And all the saints of the first grass, 6 

As castling foals of Balaam's ass. 540 

At this the Knight grew high in chafe, 
And staring furiously on Ralph, 
He trembled, and look'd pale with ire, 7 
Like ashes first, then red as fire. 

1 See above, p. 124, for an explanation of the term Smectymnuus. The 
majority originally in favour of Presbyterianism, which was overthrown by 
the Independents, is ridiculed under the name of Legion. 

3 So in the first editions, afterwards altered by Butler to O'er-reach'd, 
and again restored. Capoch'd means hood- winked. Why-not is a fanciful 
term used in Butler's Remains, vol. i. p. 178 ; and signifies the obliging a 
man to yield his assent. 

3 These we're the Assembly of Divines, whose work was almost all un- 
done by the supremacy of the Independents. 

4 The Dilatory was a book drawn up by the Assembly of Divines (120 
Divines and 30 Laymen) and published by authority of Parliament, con- 
taining instructions to their ministers for the regulation of public worship. 
It became a mere curiosity when the Independents set up freedom of worship. 

5 That is, from July 1, 1643, their first meeting, to August 28, 1648, when 
their discipline by classes was established. The Divines of the Assembly 
being paid by the day, are presumed to have had an interest in prolonging 
their work. 

The Presbyterians, the first sectaries that sprang up and opposed the 
established church. 

7 These two lines are not in the first editions ; but were added in 1674. 



CATfTO II.] HUDIBBAS. 195 

Have I, quoth he, been ta'en in fight, 545 

And for so many moons lain by 't, 

And when ah 1 other means did fail, 

Have been exchang'd for tubs of ale ? l 

Not but they thought me -worth a ransom 

Much more consid'rable and handsome ; 550 

But for their own sakes, and for fear 

They were not safe, when I was there ; 

Now to be baffled by a scoundrel, 

An upstart sect'ry, and a mungrel, 2 

Such as breed out of peccant humours 655 

Of our own church, like wens or tumours, 

And like a maggot in a sore, 

Wou'd that which gave it life devour ; 

It never shall be done or said : 

"With that he seiz'd upon his blade ; 3 560 

And Ealpho too, as quick and bold, 

Upon his basket-hilt laid hold, 

With equal readiness prepar'd, 

To draw and stand ixpon his guard. 

"When both were parted on the sudden, 665 

With hideous clamour, and a loud one, 

As if all sorts of noise had been 

Contracted into one loud din ; 

Or that some Member to be chosen, 

Had got the odds above a thousand ; 670 

And, by the greatness of his noise, 

Prov'd fittest for his country's choice. 

1 A contemporary note on these lines quoted by Grey, says, " The Knight 
was kept prisoner in Exeter, and after several changes proposed, but none 
accepted, was at last released for a barrel of ale, as he used upon all oc- 
casions to declare." This identifies Hudibras with a living original, as- 
sumed to be Sir Samuel Luke. 

2 Thus Don Quixote to Sancho : " How now, opprobrious rascal ! stinking 
garlic-eater ! sirrah, I will take you and tie your dogship to a tree, as naked 
as your mother bore you." See note on lines 187, &c. 

3 Grey compares this scene to the contest between Brutus and Cassius, 
in Shakspeare's Julius Caesar, Act iv. History relates that the quarrel 
between the Presbyterians and the Independents proceeded beyond the 
mere clapping of hand to sword. And Cromwell's victories, all of which 
were summed up in Dunbar fight, were the proof of what Ealpho' s 
" basket-hilt" could do in such a case. 

o 2 



196 HUDIBEAS. [PART II. 

This strange surprisal put the Knight 

And wrathful Squire into a fright ; 

And tho' they stood prepar'd, with fatal 575 

Impetuous rancour, to join battle, 

Both thought it was the wisest course 

To wave the fight, and mount to horse ; 

And to secure, by swift retreating, 

Themselves from danger of worse beating ; 580 

Tet neither of them would disparage, 

By utt'ring of his mind, his courage, 

"Which made them stoutly keep their ground, 

"With horror and disdain wind-bound. 

And now the cause of all their fear 1 585 

By slow degrees approach' d so near, 
They might distinguish different noise 2 
Of horns, and pans, and dogs, and boys, 
And kettle-drums, whose sullen dub 
Sounds like the hooping of a tub : 590 

But when the sight appear'd in view, 
They found it was an antique show ; 
A triumph, that for pomp and state, 
Did proudest Romans emulate : 3 
For as the aldermen of Borne 595 

Their foes at training overcome, 
And not enlarging territory, 
As some, mistaken, write in story, 4 

1 The poet does not suffer his heroes to proceed to open violence ; hut 
ingeniously puts an end to the dispute, by introducing them to a new ad- 
venture. The drollery of the following scene is inimitable. 

2 Var. "They might discern respective noise," in editions of 1664. 

3 The Skimmington, a ludicrous cavalcade in derision of a husband's sub- 
mitting to be beaten by his wife. It consisted generally of a man riding 
behind a woman, with his face to the horse's rump, holding a distaff in his 
hand, the woman all the while belabouring him with a ladle. The learned 
reader will be amused by comparing this description with the pompous ac- 
cafint of JEmilius's triumph, as described by Plutarch, and the satirical 
one given by Juvenal in his tenth Satire. The details of the Skimmington 
are so accurately described by the poet, that he must have derived them 
from actual observation. See a full account of it in Brand's Popular An- 
tiquities, vol. ii. p. 180 (Bohn's edition). 

4 Our poet mixes up together the ceremonies of enlarging the Pomceriufn, 
a Roman triumph, a lord mayor's show, the exercising of the train-bands, 
and a borough election, in the most wanton spirit of burlesque poetry. 



CANTO LI.] HTTDIBRAS. 107 

Being mounted in their best array, 

Upon a car, and who but they ? 600 

And follow' d with a world of tall lads, 

That merry ditties troll' d, and ballads, 1 

Did ride with many a good-morrow, 

Crying, Hey for our town, thro' the borough ; 

So when this triumph drew so nigh, 605 

They might particulars descry, 

They never saw two things so pat, 

In all respects, as this and that. 

First he that led the cavalcate, 2 

"Wore a sow-gelder's flagellate, 610 

On which he blew as strong a levet, 3 

As well-feed lawyer on his brev'ate, 

When over one another's heads 

They charge, three ranks at once, like Sweads : 4 

Next pans and kettles of all keys, 615 

From trebles down to double base ; 

And after them upon a nag, 

That might pass for a fore-hand stag, 

A cornet rode, and on his staff, 

A smock display' d did proudly wave. 620 

Then bagpipes of the loudest drones, 

"With snuffling broken-winded tones ; 

Whose blasts of air in pockets shut, 

Sound filthier than from the gut, 

And make a viler noise than swine 625 

In windy weather, when they whine. 

1 The vulgar, and the soldiers themselves, had at triumphal processions 
the liberty of abusing their general. Their invectives were commonly con- 
veyed in metre. See Suetonius, Life of Julius Caesar, p. 33 (Bohn's 
edition). 

2 The words at the end of this and the next line were altered subse- 
quently into cavalcade and flagellet, to the marring of the rhyme. 

3 Levet is a blast on the trumpet, a reveille, which used to be sounded 
morning and evening on shipboard. 

4 This and the preceding line were added in 1674. Butler has departed 
from the common method of spelling the word Swedes for the sake of 
rhyme: in the edition of 1689, after his death, it was printed Sweeds. 
The Swedes appear to have been the first who practised firing by two or 
three ranks at a time, over each others' heads : see Sir Bobert Monro's 
Memoirs, and Bariffs Young Artillery-man. The Swedes, under Gustavus 
Adolphus, were the most famous soldiers of Europe. 



198 HUDIBEAS. [PAET IT 

Next one upon a pair of panniers, 

Full fraught with that which, for good manners, 

Shall here be nameless, mix'd with grains, 

Which he dispens'd among the swains, 630 

And busily upon the crowd 

At random round about bestow'd. 

Then mounted on a horned horse, 

One bore a gauntlet and gilt spurs, 

Ty'd to the pommel of a long sword 635 

He held revers'd, the point turn'd downward. 

Next after, on a raw-bon'd steed, 

The conqueror's standard-bearer rid, 

And bore aloft before the champion 

A petticoat display' d, and rampant -, 1 640 

Near whom the Amazon triumphant, 

Bestrid her beast, and on the rump on't 

Sat face to tail, and bum to bum, 

The warrior whilom overcome ; 

Arm'd with a spindle and a distaff, 645 

"Which, as he rode, she made him twist off; 

And when he loiter' d, o'er her shoulder 

Chastised the reformado soldier. 2 

Before the dame, and round about, 

March'd whifflers, and staffiers on foot, 3 650 

"With lackies, grooms, valets, and pages, 

In fit and proper equipages ; 

Of whom some torches bore, some links, 

Before the proud virago-minx, 

That was both madam and a don, 4 655 

Like Nero's Sporus, 5 or Pope Joan ; 

1 Ridiculing the terms in which heralds blazon coats of arms. 

2 See note on line 116, above. 

3 "A mighty whiffler 'fore the king seems to prepare his way." Henry 
V., Act v., chorus. There were whifflers formerly amongst the inferior 
officers of the corporation at Norwich. Their duty in recent times (before 
the date of the Municipal Reform Act) was to clear the way before his 
Worship, as he went to church on Guild-day ; which they did by running and 
bounding about, whirling all the time with incredible agility a huge, blunt, 
two-handled sword. The whifflers who now attend the London companies 
in processions are standard-bearers and freemen carrying staves. Staffier 
is a staff-bearer, or running footman, from the French Estqfier. 

4 Mistress and master. 

5 See Suetonius' Life of Nero, for the particulars of his marriage with 



CANTO II.] IIUDIBJlAS. 199 

And at fit periods the whole rout 

Set up their throats with clam'rous shout: 

The Knight transported, and the Squire, 

Put up their weapons and their ire ; 660 

And Hudibras, who us'd to ponder 

On such sights with judicious wonder, 

Could hold no louger, to impart 

His an'madversions, for his heart. 

Quoth he, In all my life till now, 665 

I ne'er saw so profane a show ; l 
It is a paganish invention, 
"Which heathen writers often mention : 
And he, who made it, had read Goodwin, 2 
Or Ross, or Ca?lius Ehodogine, 3 670 

"With all the Grecian Speeds and Stows, 4 
That hest describe those ancient shows ; 
And has observ'd all fit decorums 
We find describ'd by old historians : 5 

?porus after he "had been gelded (Bonn's transl. p. 3.57). The story of Pope 
loan is too well known to need repetition. But see notes on the subject in 
jibbon (Bohn's edition), vol. v. p. 420. 

1 The Knight's learning leads him to see in this burlesque procession 
nothing but paganism, which he, as a reformer, is bound to put an end to 
at once. 

2 Thomas Goodwin was a high Calvinistic Independent, who, dissatisfied 
with the terms of nonconformity in England, became for swme years Pastor 
of an Independent congregation at Arnheim in Holland. On his return 
to England he was elected one of the Assembly of Divines, and in 1640, 
president of Magdalen College, Oxford. At the Restoration he was ejected, 
and died in 1679. It is however probable that Butler means Dr Thomas 
Godwyn, who wrote a celebrated manual of Hebrew Antiquities entitled 
"Moses and Aaron," Oxford, 1616, and another on Roman Antiquities, pub- 
lished Oxford, 1613, both of which went through many editions. 

3 In the edition of 1674, altered to, 

I warrant him, and understood him. 
But the older line was restored in 1704. The name of Ross has occurred 
more than once before. Ludovicus Cselius Rhodoginus (L. C. Ricchicri) 
was born at Rovigo, about 1460 ; and published a voluminous and learned 
miscellany called Lectiones Antiqum, of which one of the editions was 
printed by Aldus in 1516. He died in 1525. 

4 Speed and Stowe are celebrated English chroniclers. By Grecian Speeds 
and Stows he means, any ancient authors who have explained the antiqui- 
ties and customs of Greece. 

5 This is an imperfect rhyme, but in English, to an ear not critically acute, m 
and n sound alike. So the old sayings, among the common people taken for 
rbvmc, — A stitch in time saves nine. Tread on a worm, and it will turn, 



200 HUDIBBAS. [PAET IT. 

For, as the Roman conqueror, 675 

That put an end to foreign war, 

Ent'ring the town in triumph for it, 

Bore a slave with him in his chariot ; l 

So this insulting female "brave 

Carries "behind her here a slave : 680 

And as the ancients long ago, 

When they in field defy'd the foe, 

Hung out their mantles delict guerre, 2 

So her proud standard-bearer here, 

"Waves on his spear, in dreadful manner, 685 

A Tyrian petticoat for banner. 3 

Next links and torches, heretofore 

Still borne before the emperor : 

And, as in antique triumphs, eggs 

Were borne for mystical intrigues ; 4 690 

There's one with truncheon, like a ladle, 

That carries eggs too, fresh or adle : 

And still at random, as he goes, 

Among the rahble-rout bestows. 

Quoth Ealpho, Tou mistake the matter ; 695 

For all th' antiquity you smatter 
Is but a riding, us'd of course 
When the grey mare's the better horse ; 5 
When o'er the breeches greedy women 
Fight, to extend their vast dominion, 700 

And in the cause impatient Grizel 
Has drubb'd her husband with bull's pizzle, 
And brought him under covert-baron? 
To turn her vassal with a murrain ; 

1 See Juv. Sat. x. 42 (Bohn's transl., pp. 105 and 443). 

2 The red flag ; which has always been taken as a menace of battle a 
Voutrance. 

3 A scarlet petticoat, then worn so commonly. Butler has in mind the 
ancient poets, who are loud in their praise of Tyrian vestments, especially 
Ovid, Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius. 

4 In the orgies of Bacchus, and the games of Ceres, eggs were carried, 
and had a mystical import. In the edition of 1689, and some others, 
antique is spelt "antick," and perhaps was intended to signify "mimic," 
as well as " ancient," which is the more probable, as eggs were never used on 
real triumphs. 

5 Handbook of Proverbs, p. 170. 

6 The wife is said in law to be covert-baron, or under the protection and 
influence of her husband, her lord and baron. 



CANTO II.] HUDIBRAS. 20] 

When wives their sexes shift, like hares, 1 705 

And ride their husbands like night-mares ; 

And they, in mortal battle vanquish' d, 

Are of their charter disenfranchis'd, 

And by the right of war, like gills, 2 

Condemn'd to distaff, horns, and wheels : 3 710 

For when men by their wives are cow'd, 

Their horns of course are understood. 

Quoth Hudibras, Thou still giv'st sentence 
Impertinently, and against sense : 
'Tis not the least disparagement 715 

To be defeated by th' event, 
ISTor to be beaten by main force ; 
That does not make a man the worse, 
Altho' his shoulders, with battoon, 
Be claw'd, and cudgell'd to some tune ; 720 

A tailor's 'prentice has no hard 
Measure, that's bang'd with a true yard ; 
But to turn tail, or run away, 
And without blows give up the day ; 
Or to surrender ere the assault, 725 

That's no man's fortune, but his fault ; 
And renders men of honour less 
Than all th' adversity of success ; 
And only unto such this show 

Of horns and petticoats is due. 730 

There is a lesser profanation, 
Like that the Bomans call'd ovation : 4 



1 Many have been the vulgar errors concerning the sexes of hares, some 
of the elder naturalists pretending that they changed them annually, others 
that hares were hermaphrodite. See Browne's Vulgar Errors, b. iii. c. 17. 
But our poet here chiefly means to ridicule Dr Bulwer's Artificial Change- 
ling, p. 407, who cites the female patriarch of Greece, and Pope Joan of 
Bome. 

2 Gill, in the Scotch and Irish dialect, a girl; in "Wright's Glossary one 
of the significations is, " a wanton wench ; " and so Ben Jonson, in his 
Gipsies Metamorphosed, uses it, " Give you all your fill, — each Jack with 
his Gill." 

3 " Wheels " here are spinning wheels ; and not those of timber-gills or 
drays. 

4 At the greater triumph the Bomans sacrificed an ox ; at the lesser a 
sheep. Hence the name ovation. 



202 HUDIBRAS. [PART II. 

For as ovation was allow' d 

For conquest purchas'd without blood ; 

So men decree those lesser shows 735 

For vict'ry gotten without blows, 

By dint of sharp hard words, which some 

Give battle with, and overcome ; 

These mounted in a chair-curule, 

"Which moderns call a cucking-stool, 1 740 

March proudly to the river's side, 

And o'er the waves in triumph ride ; 

Like dukes of Venice, who are said 

The Adriatic sea to wed ; 2 

And have a gentler wife than those 745 

For whom the state decrees those shows. 

But both are heathenish, and come 

From th' whores of Babylon and Borne, 

And by the saints should be withstood, 

As antichristian and lewd ; 750 

And we, as such, should now contribute 

Our utmost strugglings to prohibit. 4 

This said, they both advanc'd, 5 and rode 
A dog-trot through the bawling crowd 
T' attack the leader, and still prest 755 

'Till they approach' d him breast to breast : 
Then Hudibras, with face and hand, 
Made signs for silence ; which obtain' d, 
What means, quoth he, this devil's procession 
With men of orthodox profession ? 760 

1 Also called ducking-stool and other names. The custom of ducking 
female shrews in the water was common in, many parts of England and 
Scotland. Such stools consisted of a chair affixed to the end of a long pole 
or lever, by which it was immerged in the water, often some stinking pool 
In some places the chair was suspended by a chain or a rope, and so lowered 
from abridge. For a full account of this once legal practice, see Brand's 
Popular Antiquities (Bonn's edit.), vol. iii. p. 103, et seq. 

2 This ceremony is performed on Ascension-day. It was instituted in 
1174, by Pope Alexander III., who gave the Doge a gold ring from his finger 
in token of the victory achieved by the Venetian fleet over Barbarossa '; 
desiring him to commemorate the event annually by throwing a circular ring 
into the Adriatic. The Doge throws a ring into the sea, while repeating the 
words, " Desponsamus te, mare, in signum veri et perpetui dominii." 

3 Butler intimates that the sea is less terrible than a scolding wife. 

4 " Strugglings " was one of the cant terms for efforts. 

5 Grey compares this advance of Hudibras and his squire to the attack 



CA>*TO II.] HTDIBBAS. 203 

'Tis ethmque and idolatrous, 

From heathenism deriv'd to us. 

Does not the whore of Bab'lon ride 

Upon her horned beast astride, 

Like this proud dame, who either is 765 

A type of her, or she of this ? 

Are things of superstitious function 

Fit to be us'd in gospel sun-shine ? 

It is an antichristian opera l 

Much us'd in midnight times of popery ; 770 

A running after self-inventions 

Of wicked and profane intentions ; 

To scandalize that sex for scolding, 

To whom the saints are so beholden. 

Women, who were our first apostles, 2 775 

Without whose aid w' had all been lost else ; 

Women, that left no stone unturn'd 

In which the Cause might be concern'd ; 

Brought in their children's spoons and whistles, 3 

To purchase swords, carbines, and pistols : 780 

Their husbands, cullies, and sweethearts, 

To take the saints' and church's parts ; 

made upon the funeral procession by Don Quixote (Part I., book ii. 
chap. 5). 

1 By the use of this word, -which bore much the same meaning that it 
does now, the knight not only proclaims his abhorrence of the Skimming- 
ton, but also the puritan hostility to musical and dramatic entertain- 
ments. 

2 The author of the Ladies' Calling observes, in his preface, " It is a 
memorable attestation Christ gives to the piety of women, by making them 
the first witnesses of his resurrection, the prime evangelists to proclaim 
these glad tidings, and, as a learned man says, apostles to the apostles." 
Butler, of course, alludes to the zeal which the ladies manifested for the good 
cause. The case of Lady Monson bas already been mentioned. The women 
and children worked with their own hands in fortifying the city of London, 
and other towns. The women of Coventry went by companies to fill up 
the quarries in the great park, that they might not harbour an enemy ; and 
being called together with a drum, marched into the park with mattocks 
and spades. Annals of Coventry, MS. 1643. 

3 In the reign of Richard II. a. d. 1382, Henry le Spencer, bishop of 
Norwich, set up the cross, and made a collection to support the cause of the 
enemies of Pope Clement, to which it is said ladies and other women con- 
tributed just in the manner Hudibras describes. See Part I. Canto ii. 
line 569, and note on line 561. 



204 HTTDIBEAS. [PAKT II. 

Drew several gifted brethren in, 

That for the bishop 8 would have been, 

And fix'd them constant to the Party, 785 

With motives powerful and hearty : 

Their husbands robb'd and made hard shifts 

T' administer unto their gifts 

All they could rap, and rend, 1 and pilfer, 

To scraps and ends of gold and silver ; 790 

Rubb'd down the teachers, tir'd and spent 

With holding forth for Parliament ; 2 

Pamper'd and edify'd their zeal 

With marrow puddings many a meal : 

Enabled them, with store of meat, 795 

On controverted points to eat : 3 

And cramm'd them till their guts did ache, 

With caudle, custard, and plum-cake. 

What have they done, or what left undone, 

That might advance the Cause at London ? 800 

March' d rank and file, with drum and ensign, 

T' entrench the city for defence in ; 

Rais'd rampires with their own soft hands, 4 

To put the enemy to stands ; 

Prom ladies down to oyster-wenches 805 

Labour'd like pioneers in trenches, 

Pell to their pick-axes and tools, 

And help'd the men to dig like moles ? 

1 Var. " Rap and run " in the first four editions. 

2 Dr Echard thus describes these preachers : " coiners of new phrases, 
drawers out of long godly words, fhick pourers out of texts of Scripture, 
mimical squeakers and bellowers, vain-glorious admirers only of themselves, 
and those of their own fashioned face and gesture : such as these shall be 
followed and worshipped, shall have their bushels of China oranges, shall be 
solaced with all manner of cordial essences and elixirs, and shall be rubbed 
down with Holland of ten shillings an ell." See also Spectator, p. 46. 

3 That is, to eat plentifully of dainties, of which they would sometimes 
controvert the lawfulness to eat at all. 

When London was expected to be attacked, and in several sieges during 
the civil war, the women, even the ladies of rank and fortune, not only en- 
couraged the men, and supplied them handsomely with provisions, but 
worked with their own hands in digging and raising fortifications. Lady 
Middlesex, Lady Foster, Lady Anne "Waller, and Mrs Dunch, have been 
particularly celebrated for their activity. The Knight's learned harangue is 
here archly interrupted by the manual wit of one who hits him in the eye 
with a rotten egg. 



CA.KTO II.] HUDIBRAS. 205 

Have not the handmaids of the city ' 

Chose of their members a committee, 810 

For raising of a common purse 

Out of their wages, to raise horse ? 

And do they not as triers sit 2 

To judge what officers are fit ? 

Have they At that an egg let fly, 815 

Hit him directly o'er the eye, 

And running down his cheek, besmear' d, 

With orange-tawny 3 slime, his beard ; 

But beard and slime be'ng of one hue, 

The wound the less appear'd iu view. 820 

Then he that on the panniers rode 

Let fly on th' other side a load, 

And quickly charg'd again, gave fully, 

In E-alpho's face, another volley. 

The Knight was startled with the smell, 825 

And for his sword began to feel ; 

And Ealpho, smother' d with the stink, 

Grasp' d his, when one that bore a link, 

O' the sudden clapp'd his flaming cudgel, 

Like linstock, to the horse's touch-hole ; 4 830 

And straight another, with his flambeau, 

Grave Ealpho, o'er the eyes, a damn'd blow. 

The beasts began to kick and fling, 

And forc'd the rout to make a ring ; 

1 Handmaids was a favourite expression of the puritans for women. 

3 This was the sneering statement of a satire called the "Parliament of 
Ladies," printed in 1647. The writer says: that divers weak persons 
having crept into places beyond their abilities, the House determined, to the 
end that men of greater parts might be put into their rooms, that the 
Ladies "Waller, Middlesex, Foster, and Mrs Dunch, by reason of their great 
experience in soldiery, be appointed a committee oftryers for the business. 

3 Bottom, the weaver (in Mids. Night's Dream), might have suggested 
this epithet, who asks in what beard he shall play the part of Pyramus ? 
" whether in a perfect yellow beard, an orange-tawny beard, or a purple- 
in-grain beard ? " Orange-tawny was the colour adopted by the Parliament 
troops at first, being the colours of Essex, who was Lord-general. It 
was, otherwise, assigned to Jews and to inferior persons. See Bacon, 
Essay xli. 

4 Linstock, from the German Linden-stock (a lime-tree cudgel), signifies 
the rod of wood with a match at the end of it, used by gunners in~firing 



206 HUDIBRAS. [PABT II 

Thro' which they quickly broke their way, 835 

And brought them off from further fray ; 

And tho' disorder' d in retreat, 

Each of them stoutly kept his seat ; 

For quitting both their swords and reins, 

They grasp'd with all their strength the manes ; 840 

And, to avoid the foe's pursuit, 

With spurring put their cattle to't, 

And till all four were out of wind, 

And danger too, ne'er look'd behind. 1 

After they'd paus'd awhile, supplying 845 

Their spirits, spent with fight and flying, 

And Hudibras recruited force 

Of lungs, for action or discourse : 

Quoth he, That man is sure to lose 
That fouls his hands with dirty foes : 85C 

For where no honour's to be gain'd, 
'Tis thrown away in be'ng maintain' d : 
'Twas ill for us we had to do 
"With so dishon'rable a foe : 

For tho' the law of arms doth bar 855 

The use of venom' d shot in war, 2 
Tet by the nauseous smell, and noisome, 
Their case-shot savours strong of poison ; 
And, doubtless, have been chew'd with teeth 
Of some that had a stinking breath ; 860 

Else when we put it to the push, 
They had not giv'n us such a brush : 
But as those poltroons that fling dirt, 
Do but defile, but cannot hurt ; 

So all the honour they have won, 865 

Or we have lost, is much at one. 

J Presumed to be a sneer at the Earl of Argyll, who more than once fled 
from Montrose and never looked behind till he was out of danger, as at 
Inverary in 1644, Inverlochie, and Kilsyth; and in like manner from 
Monro at Stirling Bridge, where he did not look behind him till, after 
eighteen miles hard riding, he had reached the North Queers ferry and 
possessed himself of a boat, whence arose the saying—" One pair of heels is 
worth two pairs of hands." 

2 " Abusive language and fustian are as unfair m controversy as poison- 
ed arrows or chewed bullets in battle." 



CA^TO II.] HFDIBBA3. 207 

'Twas well we made so resolute 

A brave retreat, without pursuit ; l 

For if we bad not, we bad sped 

Much worse, to be in triumph led ; 870 

Than which the ancients held no state 

Of man's life more unfortunate. 

But if this bold adventure e'er 

Do chance to reach the widow's ear, 

It may, being destin'd to assert 875 

Her sex's honour, reach her heart : 

And as such homely treats, they say, 

Portend good fortune, 2 so this may. 

Vespasian being daub'd with dirt 3 

"Was destin'd to the empire for't ; 4 880 

And from a scavenger did come 

To be a mighty prince in Rome : 

1 In both editions of 1664, this line ends " — t' avoid pursuit." 

2 The original of the coarse proverb here alluded to (Handbook of Pro- 
verbs, p. 131) was the glorious battle of Agincourt, when the English were 
so afflicted with the dysentery that most of them chose to fight naked from 
the girdle downward. It is thus cited in the Rump Songs, vol. ii. p. 39. 

There's another proverb gives the Rump for his crest, 

But Alderman Atkins made it a jest, 

That of all kinds of luck, shitten luck is the best. 

3 This and the five following lines were not in the two first editions, but 
were added in 1674. 

4 Suetonius, in the Life of Vespasian, sect, v., says, " "When he was eedile, 
Caligula, being enraged at his not taking care to keep the streets clean, or- 
dered him to be covered with mud, which the soldiers heaped up even into 
the bosom of his preetexta ; and there were not wanting those who fore- 
told that at some time the state, trodden down and neglected through mil 
discord, would come into bis guardianship, or as it were into his bosom." 
See Bonn's Suetonius, p. 446. But Dio Cassius, with all his superstition, 
acknowledges that the secret meaning of the circumstance was not discover- 
ed till after the event. Nash thinks that Butler might also have in view 
the following story told of Oliver Cromwell, afterward Lord Protector. 
When young he was invited by Sir Oliver Cromwell, his uncle and god- 
father, to some Christmas revels given for the entertainment of King James 
I., when, indulging his love for fun, he went to the ball with his hands and 
clothes besmeared with excrement, to the great disgust of the company : 
for which outrage the master of misrule ordered him to be ducked in the 
horsepond. Noble's Memoirs of the Cromwell Family, vol. i. p. 98, and 
Bate's Elenchus Motuum. 



208 



[PA.BT II. 



And why may not this foul address 

Presage in love the same success ? 

Then let us straight, to cleanse our wounds, 885 

Advance in quest of nearest ponds ; 

And after, as we first design' d, 

Swear I've perform'd what she enjoin'd. 1 

1 The Knight resolves to wash his face and foul his conscience ; he was 
no longer for reducing Ealpho to a whipping, but for deceiving the widow 
by forswearing himself. 




PART U. CANTO III. 







ARGUMENT. 

The Knight, with various doubts possest, 

To win the Lady goes in quest 

Of Sidrophel the Kosy-crueian, 

To Imow the dest'nies' resolution : 

With whom b'ing met, they both chop loc 

About the science astrologic ; 

Till falling from dispute to fight, 

The Conj'rer's worsted by the Knight. 




PART II. CANTO III. 



OUBTLESS the pleasure is as great 
Of being cheated, as to cheat ; 2 
A s lookers-on feel most delight, 
That least perceive a juggler's slight, 
And still the less they understand, 5 

The more th' admire his slight of hand. 
Some with a noise, and greasy light, 

Are snapt, as men catch larks by night, 3 

Ensnar'd and hamper'd by the soul, 

As nooses by the legs catch fowl. 4 10 

Some, with a med'cine and receipt, 

Are drawn to nibble at the bait ; 5 

1 As the subject of this canto is the dispute between Hudibras and an 
astrologer, it is prefaced by some reflections on the credulity of men, -which 
exposes them to the artifices of cheats and impostors, not only to such as 
lawyers, physicians, and divines, but even astrologers, wizards, and fortune- 
tellers. Dr James Young, in his Sidrophel Vapulans, &c. (p. 35), tells a 
good tale of an astrologer begging Pope Gregory the Seventh (who en- 
couraged his art) to assign it a patron saint, and being left to choose for 
himself, did so blindfold, and laid his hand on the image of the Devil in 
combat with St Michael. He does not say whether the astrologer was con- 
tent, or whether the Holy Father confirmed his choice. 

2 This famous couplet is enlarged on by Swift, in his Tale of a Tub, in 
treating of the pleasures of mental delusion, where he says that the happiness 
of life consists in being well deceived. 

3 This alludes to the morning and evening lectures, which, in those times 
of pretended reformation and godliness, were delivered by candle-light, in 
many churches, during a great part of the year. To maintain and frequent 
these, was deemed the greatest evidence of religion and sanctity: The 
gifted preachers were very loud. The simile is taken from the method of 
catching larks at night, in some countries, by means of a bell and a 
lanthorn : that is, by first alarming them, and then blinding them with a 
light, so that they are easily caught. „ 

4 Woodcocks, and some other birds, are caught in springes. 

5 Are cheated by quacks who boast of nostrums and infallible receipts. 



casto in.] 



And tlio' it be a two-foot trout, 
'Tis with a single hair pull'd out. 1 

Others believe no voice t' an organ 15 

So sweet as lawyer's in his bar-gown, 2 
Until, with subtle cobweb-cheats, 
They're catch'd in knotted law, like nets ; 
In which, when once they are imbrangled, 
The more they stir, the more they're tangled ; 2 ) 

And while their purses can dispute, 
There's no end of th' immortal suit. 

Others still gape t' anticipate 
The cabinet designs of fate, 

Apply to wizards, to foresee 3 c:> 

What shall, and what shall never be ; 4 
And as those vultures do forbode, 5 
Believe events prove bad or good. 
A flam more senseless than the roguery 
Of old aruspicy and aug'ry, 6 30 

That out of garbages of cattle 
Presag'd th' events of truce or battle ; 
Prom flight of birds, or chickens pecking, 
Success of great'st attempts would reckon : 

1 That is, though a man of discernment, and one as unlikely to be caught 
by a medicine and a receipt, as a trout two feet long to be pvdled out by a 
single hair. 

2 In the hope of success many are led into law-suits, from which they are 
not able to extricate themselves till they are quite ruined. See Ammianus 
Marcellinus, lib. xxx. cap. 4, where the evil practices of lawyers in the Eo- 
man Empire are described, in terms not unsuitable to modern times. 

3 Var. Run after wizards ; in editions of 1664. 

4 Thus Horace, in his fifth Satire, Book ii. v. 59 : 
son of great Laertes, everything 



Shall come to pass, or 



sing ; 



For Phoebus, monarch of the tuneful Nine, 
Informs my soul, and gives me to divine. 

5 Alluding to the opinion that v iltwes repair b;forehand to the place 
where battles will be fought. Vultures being bird? of prey, the word is 
here used in a double sense. 

6 Aruspicy was divination by sacrifice ; by the behaviour of the beast 
before it was slain, by the appearance of its entrails, or of the flames 
while it was burning. Augury was divination from appearances in the 
heavens, thunder, lightning, &c, also from birds, their flight, chatter- 
ing, manner of feeding, &c. Cato used to say, somewhat shrewdly, that he 
marvelled how an augur could keep his countenance when he met a brother 
of the College. 

f2 



212 HUDIBEAS. [PAET II. 

Tho' cheats, yet more intelligible 35 

Than those that with the stars do fribble. 

This Hudibras by proof found true, 

As in due time and place we'll shew : 

For he, with beard and face made clean, 

Being mounted on his steed again, 40 

And Halpho got a cock-horse too, 

Upon his beast, with much ado, 

Advanc'd on for the widow's house, 

T' acquit himself and pay his vows ; 

"When various thoughts began to bustle 45 

And with his inward man to justle. 1 

He thought what danger might accrue, 

If she should find he swore untrue ; 

Or if his squire or he should fail, 

And not be punctual in their tale, 60 

It might at once the ruin prove 

Both of his honour, faith, and love : 

But if he should forbear to go, 

She might conclude he'd broke his vow ; 

And that he durst not now, for shame, 55 

Appear in court to try his claim. 

This was the penn'orth of his thought,* 

To pass time, and uneasy trot. 

Quoth he, In all my past adventures 
I ne'er was set so on the tenters, 60 

Or taken tardy with dilemma, 3 
That ev'ry way I turn, does hem me, 
And with inextricable doubt 
Besets my puzzled wits about : 

For though the dame has been my bail, 65 

To free me from enchanted jail, 
Yet, as a dog committed close 
For some offence, by chance breaks loose, 
And quits his clog ; but all in vain, 

1 The Knight is perpetually troubled with "cases of conscience;" this 
being one characteristic of the class which he typifies. 

2 That is, the value of it, in allusion to the common saying — " A penny 
for your thoughts." 

3 An argument in logic consisting of two or more propositions, so dis- 
posed that deny or admit which you will you shall be involved in dif- 
ficulties. 



ca>-to rri.] httdibras. 213 

He still draws after him his chain : l 70 

So tho' my ancle she has quitted, 

My heart continues still committed ; 

And like a bail'd and mainpriz'd lover, 2 

Altho' at large I am bound over : 

And when I shall appear in court 75 

To plead my cause, and answer for't, 

Unless the judge do partial prove, 

What will become of me and love ? 

For if in our account we vary, 

Or but in circumstance miscarry : 80 

Or if she put me to strict proof, 

And make me pull my doublet off, 

To show, by evident record, 

Writ on my skin, I've kept my word, 

How can I e'er expect to have her, 85 

Having demurr'd unto her favour ? 

But faith, and love, and honour lost, 

Shall be reduc'd t' a knight o' th' post : 3 

Beside, that stripping may prevent 

What I'm to prove by argument, 90 

And justify I have a tail, 

And that way, too, my proof may fail. 

Oh ! that I could enucleate, 4 

And solve the problems of my fate ; 

Or find, by necromantic art, 5 95 

How far the dest'nies take my part ; 

For if I were not more than certain 

To win and wear her, and her fortune, 

1 Persius applies this simile to the case of a person who is well inclined, 
but cannot resolve to he uniformly virtuous. See Satire V. t. 157. 

Alas ! the struggling dog breaks loose in vain, 
Whose neck still drags along a trailing length of chain. 
And Petrarch has applied this simile to love. 

2 Mainprized signifies one delivered by the judge into the custody of such 
as shall undertake to see him forthcoming at the day appointed. He had 
been set free from the stocks by the widow, and had bound himself to appear 
before her. 3 See note at p. 28. 

4 Explain, or open ; literally, to take the kernel out of a nut. 

5 Necromancy, or the black art, is the discovery of future events by com- 
municating with the dead. It is called the black art, from the fanciful re- 
semblance of necromancy to m^romancy, and because it was presumed that 
evil spirits were concerned in effecting the communication with the dead. 



214 HTTDIBBAS. [PAET II. 

I'd go no further in this courtship, 

To hazard soul, estate, and worship : 100 

For tho' an oath obliges not, 

Where anything is to he got, 1 

As thou hast prov'd, yet 'tis profane 

And sinful when men swear in vain. 

Quoth Kalph, Not far from hence doth dwell 105 
A cunning man, hight Sidrophel, 2 
That deals in destiny's dark counsels, 
And sage opinions of the moon sells, 3 
To whom all people far and near, 
On deep importances repair : 110 

"When brass and pewter hap to stray, 4 
And linen slinks out of the way ; 
"When geese and pullen are seduc'd, 5 
And sows of sucking pigs are chows' d ; 6 
When cattle feel indisposition, 115 

And need th' opinion of physician ; 
"When murrain reigns in hogs or sheep, 
And chickens languish of the pip ; 
When yeast and outward means do fail, 
And have no pow'r to work on ale ; 120 

1 The accommodating notions of dissenters with regard to oaths have 
already been stated in some preceding cantos. 

2 Sidrophel was no donbt intended for William Lilly, the famous as- 
trologer and almanack maker, who, till the king's affairs declined, was a 
cavalier, but after the year 1645, engaged body and soul in the cause of the 
Parliament, and was one of the close committee to consult about the king's 
execution. He was consulted by the Royalists, with the king' s privity, whether 
the king should escape from Hampton-court, whether he should sign the 
propositions of the Parliament, &c, and had twenty pounds for his opinion. 
See the Life of A. Wood, Oxford, 1772, p. 101, 102, and his own Life, in 
which are many curious particulars. Some have thought that Sir Paul 
iSTeal was intended, which is a mistake : but Sir Paul Neal was the Sidro- 
phel of the Heroical Epistle, printed at the end of this canto. Hight, 
that is, called, is from the Anglo-Saxon haten, to call. 

;i i. e. the omens which he collects from the appearance of the moon. 

4 Lilly professed to be above this profitable branch of his art, which 
he designated the shame of astrology; but he was accused of practising 
it, in a pamphlet written against him by Sir John Birkenhead. 

5 Pullen, that is, poultry, from the French Poulet. 

6 This was a new word in Butler's time, having originated in the frauds 
committed by a " chiaous," or messenger attached to the Turkish Embassy 
in 1609. See Gifford's Ben Jonson, the Alchemist, Act i. sc. 1. 



CA>"TO III. J HUDIBHAS. 215 

When butter does refuse to come, 1 
And love proves cross and humoursome ; 
To him with questions, and with urine, 2 
They for discov'ry flock, or curing. 

Quoth Hudibras, This Sidrophel 125 

I've heard of, and should like it well, 
If thou canst prove the saints have freedom 
To go to sorc'rers when they need 'em. 

Says Ealpho, There's no doubt of that ; 
Those principles I've quoted late, 130 

Prove that the godly may allege 
For anything their privilege, 
And to the devil himself may go, 
If they have motives thereunto : 
For as there is a war between ] 35 

The devil and them, it is no sin 
If they, by subtle stratagem, 
Make use of him, as he does them. 
Has not this present Parl'ament 
A ledger to the devd sent, 3 140 

Fully empower' d to treat about 
Finding revolted witches out ? 4 
And has not he, within a year, 
Hang'd threescore of 'em in one shire ? 5 



1 When a country wench, says Selden in his Tahle Talk, cannot get her 
butter to come, she says the witch is in the churn. 

3 Lilly's Autobiography abounds with illustrations of these lines ; people 
of all ranks seem to have had faith in his diagnosis of their waters, as well 
as in his skill in " discovery." 

3 That is, an ambassador. The person meant was Hopkins, the noted 
witch-finder for the Associated Counties. 

1 That is, revolted from the Parliament. 

5 It is incredible what a number of poor, sick, and decrepit wretches were 
put to death, under the pretence of their being witches. Hopkins occasion- 
ed threescore to be hung in one year, in the county of Suffolk. See Dr 
Hutchinson, p. 59. Grey says, he has seen an account of between three and 
four thousand that suffered in the king's dominions, from the year 1640 to 
the king's restoration. "In December, 1649," says Whitelock, "many 
witches were apprehended. The witch-trier taking a pin, and thrusting it 
into the skin in many parts of their bodies ; if they were insensible of it, it 
was a circumstance of proof against them. October, 1652, sixty were accused : 
much malice, little proof; though they were tortured many ways to make 
them confess." 



216 HUDIBRAS. [PAET II. 

Some only for not being drown'd, 1 145 

And some for sitting above ground 

Whole days and nights upon their breeches, 2 

And feeling pain, were hang'd for witches ; 

And some for putting knavish tricks 

Upon green geese and turkey- chicks, 150 

Or pigs, that suddenly deceast, 

Of griefs unnatural, as he guest ; 

Who after prov'd himself a witch, 

And made a rod for his own breech. 3 

Did not the Devil appear to Martin 155 

Luther in Germany for certain ? 4 

And would have gull'd him with a trick, 

But Mart, was too, too politic. 

Did he not help the Dutch to purge, 

At Antwerp, their cathedral church ? 5 160 

1 See Part II. Canto I. line 503, note. 

2 One of the tests of a witch was to tie her legs across, and so to seat her 
on them that they were made to sustain the whole weight of her hody, and 
rendered her incapable of motion. In this painful posture she would be 
kept during the whole of the trial, and sometimes 24 hours, without food, 
till she confessed. 

3 Dr Hutchinson, in his Historical Essay on Witchcraft, page 66, tells 
us, "that the country, tired of the cruelties committed by Hopkins, tried 
him by his own system. They tied his thumbs and toes, as he used to do 
others, and threw him into the water ; when he swam like the rest." 

4 Luther, in his book de Missa privata, says he was persuaded to preach 
against the Mass by reasons suggested to him by the Devil, in a disputation. 
Melchior Adam says the Devil appeared to Luther in his own garden, in the 
shape of a black boar. And the Table Talk relates that when Luther was in 
his chamber, in the castle at "Wartsburg, the Devil cracked some nuts which 
he had in a box upon the bed-post, tumbled empty barrels down-stairs, &c. 
There is still shown at this castle the mark on the wall, made by Luther's 
inkstand, which he hurled at the Devil's head, when he mocked the Reform- 
er as he was busied on the translation of the Bible. But he generally rid him- 
self of the tempter by jests, and sometimes rather unsavoury ones. See some 
anecdotes of Luther's belief in witchcraft in Luther's Table Talk by Haz- 
litt, p. 251, &c. 

5 In the beginning of the civil war in Flanders, the common people at 
Antwerp broke into the cathedral and destroyed the ornaments. Strada, 
in his book de Bello Belgico, says, that " several devils were seen to assist 
them ; without whose aid it would have been impossible, in so short a time, 
to have done so much mischief." 



CAXTO III.] HUDIBKAS. 217 

Sing catches to the saints at Mascon, 1 

And tell them all they came to ask him ? 

Appear in divers shapes to Kelly, 2 

And speak i' th' nun of Loudun's helly ? 3 

Meet with the Parliament's committee, 165 

At Woodstock, on a pers'nal treaty ? 4 

At Sarum take a cavalier, 5 

I 1 th' Cause's service, prisoner ? 

As "Withers, in immortal rhyme, 

Has register'd to after-time. 170 

1 Mascon is a town in Burgundy, where an unclean devil, as he was 
called, played his pranks in the house of Mr Perreaud, a reformed minister, 
aim. 1612. Sometimes he sang psalms, at others licentious verses, and 
frequently lampooned the Huguenots. Mr Perreaud published a circum- 
stantial account of him in French, which at the request of Mr Boyle, who 
had heard the matter attested, was translated into English by Dr Peter de 
Moulin. The poet calls them saints, because they were of the Genevan creed. 

2 See notes to lines 236-7-8. The persons here instanced made great 
pretensions to sanctity. On this circumstance Ealpho founds his argument 
for the lawfulness of the practice, that saints may converse with the devil. 
Casaubon informs us that Dee, who was associated with Kelly, employed 
himself in prayer and other acts of devotion, before he entered upon his 
conversation with spirits. 

3 Grandier, the curate of Loudun, was ordered td be burned alive, a. d. 
1634, by Judges commissioned and influenced by Richelieu; and the pri- 
oress, with half the nuns in the convent, were obliged to own themselves 
bewitched. Grandier was a handsome man, and very eloquent ; and his 
real fault was that he outdid the monks in their own arts. There was, in 
reality, no ground but the envy and jealousy of the monks, for the charges 
against him. See Bayle's Dictionary, Art. Grandier ; and Dr Hutchinson's 
Historical Essay on Witchcraft, p. 36. 

4 Dr Plot, in his History of Oxfordshire, ch. viii., tells us how the devil, 
or some evil spirit, disturbed the commissioners at Woodstock, whither 
they went to value the crown lands directly after the execution of Charles I. 
A personal treaty had been very much desired by the king, and often pressed 
and petitioned for by great part of the nation ; the poet insinuates that 
though the Parliament refused to hold a personal treaty with the king, yet 
they scrupled not to hold one with the devil at "Woodstock. Sir Walter 
Scott has made the tale familiar by his novel. The whole of the attacks upon 
the commissioners, in the form of ghosts and evil spirits, which finally drove 
them from the place, were planned and in great part carried into effect by 
a roguish concealed loyalist, Joseph Collins, or Funny Joe, who was en- 
gaged as their Secretary, under the name of Giles Sharp. 

5 Withers, who figures in Pope's Dunciad, was a puritanical officer in the 
Parliament army and a prolific writer of verse. He has a long story, in 
doggrel, of a soldier of the king's army, who being a prisoner at Salisbury, 
and drinking a health to the devil upon his knees, was carried away by 
him through a single pane of glass. 



218 HUBIBBAS. [PAET II. 

Do not our great reformers use 
This Sidrophel to forebode news ; l 
To write of victories next year, 2 
And castles taken, yet i' th' air ? 
Of battles fought at sea, and ships 175 

Sunk, two years hence ? the last eclipse ? 3 
A total o'erthrow giv'n the king 
In Cornwall, horse and foot, next spring ? 4 
And has not he point-blank foretold 
"Whats'e'er the close committee would ? 5 180 

Made Mars and Saturn for the Cause, 6 
The moon for Fundamental Laws, 
The Earn, the Bull, the Goat, declare 
Against the book of Common Prayer ? 
The Scorpion take the Protestation, 185 

- And Bear engage for Reformation ? 
Made all the royal stars recant, 
Compound, and take the Covenant ? 7 
Quoth Hudibras, The case is clear 
The saints may employ a conjurer, 190 

As thou hast prov'd it by their practice ; 
No argument like matter of fact is : 
And we are best of all led to 
Men's principles, by what they do. 

1 Lilly was employed to foretell victories on the side of the Parliament, 
and was well paid for his services. 

3 Lilly tells us himself how he predicted a victory for the king about 
June, 164o, which unluckily proved to be the time of his total defeat at Nase- 
by. He says that during Cromwell's campaign in Scotland, in one of the 
battles, a soldier encouraged his comrades by reading the month' s predic- 
tion of victories to them, out of " Anglicus." 

3 Lilly grounded lying predictions on that event. Grey says, his reputa- 
tion was lost by his false prognostic of an eclipse that was to happen on 
^he 29th of March 1652, commonly called Black Monday. But in 1656, 
the Royalists at Bruges were greatly inspirited by a prediction of the king's 
restoration in the following year, which he had communicated to one of 
Charles' secretaries. 

4 The direct contrary happened ; for the king overthrew the Parliament- 
arians in Cornwall. 

5 The Parliament appointed a licenser of almanacks, and so prevented any 
from appearing which prophesied good for the Cause. 

6 Made the planets and constellations side with the Parliament. 

7 The author here evidently alludes to Charles, elector palatine of the 
Rhine, and to King: Charles the Second, who both took the Covenant. 



CANTO III. HXDIBIJAS. 



219 



Then let us straight advance in quest 195 

Of this profound gymnosophist, 1 
And as the fates and he advise, 
Pursue, or waive this enterprise. 

This said, he turn'd about his steed, 
And eftsoons on th' adventure rid ; 200 

Where leave we him and Ralph awhile, 
Aud to the Conj'rer turn our stile, 
To let our reader understand 
What's useful of him beforehand. 

He had been long t'wards mathematics, 205 

Optics, phdosophy, and statics, 
Magic, horoscopy, astrology, 
And was old dog 2 at physiology : 
But as a dog, that turns the spit, 3 
Bestirs himself, and plies his feet 210 

To climb the wheel, but all in vain, 
His own weight brings him down again ; 
And still he's in the self-same place 
Where at his setting out he was ; 
So in the circle of the arts 215 

Did he advance his nat'ral parts, 
Till falling back still, for retreat, 
He fell to juggle, cant, and cheat : 4 
For as those fowls that live in water 
Are never wet, he did but smatter ; 22o 

1 The Gymnosophists were a sect of philosophers in India, so called from 
their going with naked feet and very little clothing. They were extreme 
abstinents, and much respected for their superior sanctity. Butler seems to 
use the word as equivalent to recluse or ascetic. 

2 A humorous employment of the proverbial term for an experienced or 
knowing person. 

3 Prior's simile seems to have been suggested by this passage : 

Dear Thomas, didst thou never see 
('Tis but by way of simile) 
A squirrel spend his little rage 
In jumping round a rolling cage ? 
But here or there, turn wood or wire, 
He never gets two inches higher. 
So fares it with those merry blades 
That frisk it under Pindus' shades. 

4 The account here given of "William Lilly agrees exactly with his Life 
written by himself. 



220 HUDIBRAS. [PAET II. 

Whate'er lie labour'd to appear, 

His understanding still was clear ; 1 

Yet none a deeper knowledge boasted, 

Since old Hodge Bacon, and Bob Grosted. 2 

Th' intelligible world be knew, 3 225 

And all men dream on't, to be true, 

Tbat in tbis world there's not a wart 

That bas not tbere a counterpart ; 

Nor can tbere, on tbe face of ground, 

An individual beard be found, 230 

Tbat bas not in tbat foreign nation 

A fellow of tbe self-same fashion ; 

So cut, so colour' d, and so curl'd, 

As those are in th' inferior world. 

He'd read Dee's prefaces before 235 

The Devil, and Euclid o'er and o'er ; 4 

And all th' intrigues 'twixt him and Kelly, 

Lescus and th' emperor, would tell ye : 5 

1 Clear, that is, empty. 

2 Eoger Bacon was a Franciscan friar, who flourished in the thirteenth 
century, and was commonly regarded as a conjurer or practitioner of the 
black art, on account of his knowledge of natural science and philosophy. 
His Opus Majus is one of the most wonderful books of the times in which 
he lived. He was acquainted with the composition of gunpowder, and 
seems to have anticipated some of the great discoveries of later ages. Bobert 
Grostete, bishop of Lincoln, a contemporary of Bacon, was a man of 
great learning, considering the times, and was declared to be a magician 
by the ignorant ecclesiastics. He distinguished himself by resisting the 
aggressions of the Papacy on the liberties of the English Church, for which 
he incurred the anathemas of Pope Innocent IV. 

3 The intelligible world was the model or prototype of the visible world. 
See P. i. c. i. v. 536, and note. 

4 Dr John Dee, the reputed magician, was born in London, 1527, and 
educated at Cambridge as a clergyman of the English Church. He enjoyed 
great fame during the reigns of Elizabeth and James I., by his knowledge in 
mathematics ; Tycho Brahe gives him the title of prsestantissimus mathe- 
maticus, and Camden calls him nobilis mathematicus. He wrote, among 
other things, a preface to Euclid, and to Billingsley's Geometry, to which 
Butler apparently alludes. He began early to have the reputation of hold- 
ing intercourse with the Devil, and on an occasion when he was absent, the 
populace broke into his house and destroyed the greater part of his valuable 
library and museum, valued at several thousand pounds. 

5 Kelly was an apothecary at Worcester, and Dee's chief assistant, his 
seer or "skryer " (that is, medium), as he called him. A learned Pole, Al- 



CANTO ni.J HUDIBEAS. 221 

But with the moon was more familiar 

Thau e'er was almanack well-wilier ; l 240 

Her secrets understood so clear, 

That some believ'd he had been there ; 

Knew when she was in fittest mood 

For cutting corns, or letting blood ; 2 

"When for anointing scabs and itches, 245 

Or to the bum applying leeches ; 

When sows and bitches may be spay'd, 

And in what sign best cider's made ; 

AVliether the wane be, or increase, 

Best to set garlic, or sow pease ; 250 

Who first found out the man i' th' moon, 3 

That to the ancients was unknown ; 

How many dukes, and earls, and peers, 

Are in the planetary spheres, 

Their airy empire and command, 25 5 

Their sev'ral strengths by sea and land ; 

bert Laski, whom Mr Butler calls Lescus, visiting England, formed an ac- 
quaintance with Dee and Kelly, and when he left this country took them 
and their families with him into Poland. Next to Kelly, he was the 
greatest confidant of Dee in his secret transactions. They were enter- 
tained by the Emperor Rodolph II., to whom they disclosed some of their 
secrets, and showed the wonderful stone ; and he, in return, treated them 
with great respect, knighted Kelly, but afterwards imprisoned him. Dee 
received some advantageous offers, it is said, from the king of France, the 
emperor of Muscovy, and several foreign princes, but he returned to 
England, and, after great vicissitudes, died in poverty at Mortlake, in the 
year 1608, aged 81. 

1 The almanack makers styled themselves Avcll-willers to the mathematics, 
or philomaths. 

2 Respecting these, and other matters mentioned in the following lines, 
Lilly, and the old almanack makers, gave particular directions. Astrologers 
of all ages have regarded certain planetary aspects to be especially favour- 
able to the operations of husbandry and physic, and the influence of the 
moon is still pretty generally recognised. See Tusser's Five hundred Points 
of Good Husbandry. 

3 There are and have been, in all countries and ages, different popular be- 
liefs respecting the man in the moon. He is a stealer of firewood, according 
to Chaucer ; according to others, a sabbath-breaker, or the man who was 
stoned for gathering sticks on the sabbath, whilst the Israelites were in 
the wilderness (see Numbers xv. 32). The Italian peasantry have for ages 
called him Cain, and as such he is alluded to in Dante, Paradiso II. ("Wright's 
translation, page 309). See Daniel O'Rourck's Dream, in Crofton Croker's 
Fairy Legends, for a truly Hibernian representation of his love of solitude. 



222 HUDIBRAS. [PABT II. 

"What factious they 've, and what they drive at 
In public vogue, or what in private ; 
With what designs and interests 
Each party manages contests. 260 

He made an instrument to know 
If the moon shine at full or no ; 
That would, as soon as e'er she shone, straight 
Whether 'twere day or night demonstrate ; 
Tell what her d'ameter to 'n inch is, 1 265 

And prove that she's not made of green cheese. 
It would demonstrate, that the Man in 
The moon's a sea mediterranean ; 2 
And that it is no dog nor bitch 

That stands behind him at his breech, 270 

But a huge Caspian sea or lake, 
With arms, which men for legs mistake ; 
How large a gulph his tail composes, 
And what a goodly bay his nose is ; 
How many German leagues by th' scale 276 

Cape snout's from promontory tail. 
He made a planetary gin, 3 
Which rats woidd run their own heads in, 
And come on purpose to be taken, 
Without th' espence of cheese or bacon ; 280 

With lute-strings he would counterfeit 
Maggots, that crawl on dish of meat ; 4 
. Quote moles and spots on any place 
0' th' body, by the index face ; 5 

1 The determination of the diameter of the moon was so recent an event 
in Butler's time, that scientific pedants rendered themselves fair butts for 
his satire by the use they made of this knowledge of it. 

2 It used to be supposed that the darker shadows on the moon's surface 
were seas ; and the old astronomers gave them various names, some after a 
fancied analogy in their distribution to the principal seas of the eastern 
hemisphere of the globe ; others, purely arbitrary. They are now known 
to be merely depressions on the surface ; the closest observers having 
failed to detect any trace of either water or air ! 

3 The horoscope, which looks like a net or trap, and in which places for 
the planets are duly assigned. 

4 The strings of a fiddle or lute, cut into short pieces, and strewed upon 
warm meat, will contract, and appear like live maggots. 

s " Some physiognomers have conceited the head of man to be the model 
of the whole body ; so that any mark there will have a corresponding one 
on some part of the body." See Lilly's Life. 



CA>*TO III.] HUDIBBAS. 223 

Detect lost maidenheads by sneezing, 285 

Or breaking wind of dames, or pissing ; J 

Cure warts and corns, with application 

Of med'cines to th' imagination ; 2 

Fright agues into dogs, and scare, 

With rhymes, the tooth-ach and catarrh ; 3 290 

Chase evil spirits away by dint 

Of sickle, horseshoe, hollow flint ; 4 

Spit fire out of a walnut-shell, 5 

AVhich made the Eoman slaves rebel ; 

And fire a mine in China, here, 295 

"With sympathetic gunpowder. 

1 Democritus is said to have pronounced more nicely on the maid-serrant 
of Hippocrates. Lilly professed this art, and said that no woman, whom he 
found a maid, ever twitted him with having been mistaken. 

2 "Warts are still " charmed away ; " and there are few persons who can- 
not recite numerous examples of the efficacy of "medicines applied to the 
imagination," for the removal of those unseemly excrescences. 

3 Butler seems to have raked together as many of the baits for human cre- 
dulity as his reading could furnish, or he had ever heard mentioned. 
These charms for tooth-aches and coughs were well known to the common 
people a few years since. The word abracadabra, for fevers, is as old as 
Sammonicus. Haut haut hista pista vista, were recommended for a sprain 
by Cato, and Homer relates that the sons of Autolycus stopped the bleeding 
of Ulysses' wound by a charm. Soothing medicines are still called carmin- 
atives, from the Latin carmen, a magic formula. But the records of su- 
perstition in this respect are endless, and Grey quotes several which are 
very amusing. He says, " I have heard of a merry baronet, Sir B. B., who 
had great success in the cure of agues by charms. A gentleman of his ac- 
quaintance applying to him for the cure of a stubborn quartan, which had 
defied the doctors, he told him he bad no faith, and would be prying into 
the secret, and then, notwithstanding the fit might be staved off awhile, it 
would certainly return. 'The gentleman promised him on his word of 
honour he would not look into it, but when he had escaped a second fit he 
could resist his curiosity no longer, and opened the paper, when he found in 
it no more than the words kiss — • — ." Another story of the kind is told by 
Selden in his Table-Talk. He cured a person of quality, who fancied he had 
two devils in his head, by wrapping a card in a piece of silk with strings, 
and hanging it round his neck. But those who delight in such stories- will 
find an abundance of them in Brand's Popular Antiquities, 3 vols, post 8vo. 

4 There is scarcely a stable-door in the country (none certainly at New- 
market) without a horseshoe nailed on it, or on the threshold. 

5 This refers to the origin of the Servile war in Sicily, when Eunus, a 
Syrian, excited his companions in slavery to a revolt, by pretending a com- 
mission from the gods ; and filling a nutshell with sulphur, breathed out 
fire and smoke in proof of his divine authority. See Livy, Florus, and 
other Roman historians. 



22-1 HTJDIBBAS. [PART II. 

lie knew whats'ever's to be known, 

But much more than he knew would own. 

What roed'cine 'twas that Paracelsus 

Could make a man with, as he tells us ; ' 300 

What figur'd slates are best to make, 

On wat'ry surface duck or drake ; 2 

What bowling-stones, in running race 

Upon a board, hare swiftest pace ; 

Whether a pulse beat in the black 305 

List of a dappled louse's back ; 3 

If systole or diastole move 

Quickest when he's in wrath, or love ; 4 

When two of them do run a race, 

Whether they gallop, trot, or pace ; 310 

How many scores a flea will jump, 

Of his own length, from head to rump, 5 

WTiich Socrates and Chserephon 

In vain assay' d so long agone ; 

"Whether his snout a perfect nose is, 315 

And not an elephant's proboscis ; 6 

1 Paracelsus was born in 1493, in Switzerland ; and studied medicine, 
but devoted himself most to astrology and alchemy. He professed to have 
discovered the philosopher's stone, and the elixir of life, but nevertheless 
died in poverty. One of his doctrines was that man might be generated 
without connexion of the sexes, an idea which was humorously but coarsely 
ridiculed by Rabelais, book ii. ch. 27, where he speaks of begetting 53,000 
little men with a single f . 

2 Intimating that Sidrophel was a smatterer in natural philosophy, and 
knew something of the laws of motion and gravity, though all ho arrived 
at was but child's play, such as making ducks and drakes on the water, &c. 

3 It was the fashion with the wits of our author's time to ridicule the 
Transactions of the Royal Society, and Dr Hooke in particular, whose 
Micrographia is here particularly referred to. Hooke was an admirable 
and laborious practical philosopher, but in his writings betrays much 
credulity and deficiency of method. 

* Systole (the contraction) and diastole (the dilatation) of the heart, 
are the motions by means of which the circulation of the blood is effected ; 
and the passions of the mind have a sensible influence on the animal economy. 

5 Aristophanes (Clouds, Act i. sc. 24), introduces a scholar of Socrates 
describing the method in which Socrates, and his friend Chserephon, en- 
deavoured to ascertain how many lengths of its own feet a flea will jump, 
not, as our author says, how many lengths of its body. Both Plato and 
Xenophon allude to this ridicule of their master. 

6 The lancets and sucker of the flea were a very favourite object of our 
earlier microscopists ; and they are still popular. 



CA>'TO III.] HUDIBEAS. 225 

How many diff'rent specieses 

Of maggots breed in rotten cheeses ; 

And which are next of kin to those 

Engender' d in a chandler's nose ; 320 

Or those not seen, but understood, 

That live in vinegar and wood. 1 

A paltry wretch he had, half starv'd, 
That him in place of Zany serv'd, 2 
Hight Whachum, bred to dash and draw, 325 

Not wine, but more unwholesome law ; 
To make 'twixt words and Lines huge gaps, 8 
Wide as meridians in maps ; 
To squander paper and spare ink, 
Or cheat men of their words, some think. 330 

Prom this, by merited degrees, 
He'd to more high advancement rise, 
To be an under-conjurer, 
Or journeyman astrologer : 

His business was to pump and wheedle, 335 

And men with their own keys unriddle ; 4 

• All the objects spoken of in these lines are mentioned in Dr Hooke's 
work on the Microscope. The vibriones or eels in vinegar, were by their 
bites absurdly supposed by some to be the cause of its pungency. 

2 A Zany is a buffoon, or Merry Andrew, designed to assist the quack, 
as the ballad-singer used to help the cut-purse or pick-pocket. L' Estrange 
says that Whachum is intended for one Tom Jones, a foolish Welchman. 
Others think it was meant for Eichard Green, who published a piece of 
ribaldry entitled " Hudibras in a snare," or of Sir George Wharton ; and 
Butlef's Biographer of 1710, thinks it was levelled at the author of the 
spurious "second part" of Hudibras. 

3 As lawyers used to do in their bills and answers in Chancery, for which 
they charged so much per sheet. 

4 Menckenius, in his book de Charlataneria Eruditorum, ed. Amst. 1747, 
p. 192, tells the following story. There was a quack who boasted that he could 
infallibly detect, by the appearance of the urine, not only the diseases of 
the subject, but all mishaps which might by any means have befallen him. 
To contrive this he bade his servants pump those who came to consult him, 
and communicate to him privately what they found out. One day a poor 
woman brought her husband's water to him ; and he had scarcely looked at 
it when he exclaimed, "Your husband has had the misfortune to fall down- 
stairs." She, full of wonder, said, "And did you find that out from his 
water ? " " Aye, truly," said he, " and I am very much mistaken if he 
did not fall down fifteen stairs." When, however, she said that he had 
actually fallen down twenty ; "Pray," said he, with assumed anger, "'did 
you bring all the water?" "No" replied she, "the bottle would not 

Q 



226 HTTDIERAS. [PAET II. 

To make them to themselves give answers, 

For which they pay the necromancers ; 

To fetch and carry intelligence 

Of whom, and what, and where, and whence, 340 

And all discoveries disperse 

Among th' whole pack of conjurers ; 

"What cut-purses have left with them, 

For the right owners to redeem ; 

And what they dare not vent, find out, 345 

To gain themselves and th' art repute ; 

Draw figures, schemes, and horoscopes, 

Of Newgate, Bridewell, brokers' shops, 

Of thieves ascendant in the cart, 1 

And find out all by rules of art : 350 

"Which way a serving -man, that's run 

With clothes or money 'way, is gone ; 

Who pick'd a fob at holdiug-forth, 2 

And where a watch, for half the wOrth, 

May be redeem'd ; or stolen plate 355 

Restor'd at conscionable rate. 3 

Beside all this, he serv'd his master 

In quality of poetaster, 

And rhymes appropriate could make 

To ev'ry month i' th' almanack ; 4 360 

hold it all." " There it is," said he, " you have just left those five stairs be- 
hind you ! " Another story somewhat similar is told by Grey of a Sidro- 
phel in Moorfields, who had in his waiting-room different ropes to little bells 
which hung in his consulting room upstairs. If a girl had been deceived by 
her lover, one bell was pulled ; if a peasant had lost a cow, another ; and so 
on ; his attendant taking care to sift the inquirer beforehand and give notice 
accordingly. l Ascendant, a term in astrology, is here equivocal. 

2 Holding-forth was merely preaching, and the term was borrowed, with- 
out much appropriateness, from the Epistle to the Philippians, chap. ii. 16. 
But Dean SAvift, in his " Tale of a Tub," gives a different derivation of the 
term, and humorously says that it arose from the way in which the dissent- 
ers held forth their ears " of grim magnitude," first on one side and then on 
the other. At this period warning was rastornarily given in churches and 
chapels, either by a notice board, or orally from the minister, to beware of 
pickpockets. 

3 It was a penal offence to compound a felony. And the astrologers' pro- 
fession naturally led them to be brothers in such affairs. Lilly acknowledges 
that he was once indicted for his performance in this line. 

4 Alluding to John Booker, who, Lilly informs us, "made excellent verses 
upon the twelve months, framed according to the configuration of each." 



CA>"TO III.] HUDIBEAS. 227 

When terms begin, and end, could tell, 

"With their returns, in doggerel ; l 

When the exchequer opes and shuts, 

And sow-gelder with safety cuts ; 

"When men may eat and drink their fill, 365 

And -when be temp'rate if they will ; 

When use, and when abstain from vice, 

Figs, grapes, phlebotomy, and spice. 

And as in prison mean rogues beat 

Hemp for the service of the great, 2 370 

So W'hachum beat his dirty brains 

T' advance his master's fame and gains, 

And Hke the devil's oracles, 

Put into dogg'rel rhymes his spells, 

"Which, over ev'ry month's blank page 375 

I' th' almanack, strange bilks presage. 3 

He would an elegy compose 

On maggots squeez'd out of his nose ; 

In lyric numbers write an ode on 

His mistress, eating a black-pudden ; 380 

And, when imprison' d air escap'd her, 

It puft him with poetic rapture : 

His sonnets charm'd th' attentive crowd, 

By wide-mouth'd mortal troll' d aloud, 

That, circled with his long-ear'd guests, 385 

Like Orpheus look'd among the beasts : 

A carman's horse could not pass by, 

But stood ty'd up to poetry : 

No porter's burden pass'd along, 

But serv'd for burden to his song : 390 

1 Mnemonic verses for such things have always heen in vogue and are use- 
ful enough : such as Thirty days has September, April, June, and November, 
&c. The couplet by which the Dominical or Sunday .Letter can always be 
discovered (in common years) is an example of them — 
" At Dover Dwell George Brown Esquire 
Good Christopher Finch And David Frier." 
The initial letters being those of the first days of the twelve months, in or- 
der ; from which those of all other days may be reckoned. 

3 Petty rogues, in Bridewell, beat hemp ; and it may happen that the 
produce of their labour is employed in making halters, in which greater 
criminals are hanged. 
3 Bilk signifies a cheat or fraud, as well as to baulk or disappoint. 
Q 2 



228 HUDIBEAS. [PAET II. 

Each window like a pill'ry appears, 

"With heads thrust thro' nailed by the ears ; 

All trades run in as to the sight 

Of monsters, or their dear delight 

The gallow-tree, when cutting purse 395 

Breeds bus'ness for heroic verse, 1 

"Which none does hear, but would have hung 

T' have been the theme of such a song. 2 

Those two together long had liv'd, 
In mansion, prudently contriv'd, 3 400 

Where neither tree nor house could bar 
The free detection of a star ; 
And nigh an ancient obelisk 
Was rais'd by him, found out by !Pisk, 4 
On which was written, not in words, 405 

But hieroglyphic mute of birds, 5 
Many rare pithy saws, concerning 
The worth of astrologic learning : 
From top of this there hung a rope, 
To which he fasten'd telescope ; 410 

The spectacles with which the stars 
He reads in smallest characters. 
It happen' d as a boy, one night, 
Did fly his tarsel 6 of a kite, 

1 " Copies of Verses," indited in the name of the culprit, as well as his 
"last dying speech and confession," were then customarily hawked about, 
on the day of the execution. 

2 Sir John Denham sings of the Earl of Strafford : 

So did he move our passions, some were known 
To wish, for the defence, the crime their own. 

3 Lilly had a house and grounds at Hersham, Walton-on-Thames, which 
was his regular abode when not in London. He tells us in his Life that he 
bought them in 1652, for £950. 

4 Fisk was a licentiate in medicine of good parts and very studious, but 
he abandoned his profession in pursuit of astrology. " In the year 1663," 
says Lilly in his own Life, " I became acquainted' with Nicholas Fisk, Li- 
centiate in physic, born in Suffolk, fit for, but not sent to, the university, 
studying at home astrology and physic, which he afterwards practised at 
Colchester. He had a pension from the Parliament ; and during the civil 
war, and the whole of the usurpation, prognosticated on that side." 

5 That is, the dung of birds. See the account of Tobit's loss of his eye 
sight in the Book of Tobit. 

6 Tiersel, or tiercelet, is the French name of the male goss-hawk. Set 
Wright's Glossary. 



CA>'TO III. J HUDIBRAS. 229 

The strangest long- wing' d hawk that flies, 415 

That, like a bird of Paradise, 

Or herald's martlet, has no legs, 1 

Nor hatches young ones, nor lays eggs ; 

His train was six yards long, milk white, 

At th' end of which there hung a light, 420 

Enclos'd in lanthorn made of paper, 

That far off like a star did appear : 

This Sidrophel by chance espy'd, 

And with amazement staring wide : 

Bless us, quoth he, what dreadful wonder 425 

Is that appears in heaven yonder ? 

A comet, and without a beard ! 

Or star, that ne'er before appear'd ! 2 

I'm certain 'tis not in the scrowl 

Of all those beasts, and fish, and fowl, 3 430 

With which, like Indian plantations, 

The learned stock the constellations : * 



1 The old naturalists, partly because the legs of the birds of Paradise 
are feathered down to the feet, and partly because the natives cut off the 
feet and used the whole skin as a plume, thought that they had no feet, and 
invented the most ridiculous fables about them. Martlets in heraldry are 
represented without feet. They are intended for the great black swallow, 
called the swift, or deviling, which has long and powerful wings, and is very 
seldom known to alight except on its nest. 

- There are several appearances (and disappearances) of new stars record- 
ed. One in 1573, and another in 1604, which became almost as bright as 
the planet Venus. Another was seen in 1670 ; but that was after Butler 
had written these lines. 

3 Astronomers have, from the earliest times, grouped the stars into con- 
stellations, which they have distinguished by the names of beasts, birds, 
fishes, &c., according to their supposed forms. Butler in his Genuine Re- 
mains, vol. i. p. 9, says : 

That elephants are in the moon, 
Though we had now discover'd none, 
Is easily made manifest ; 
Since from the greatest to the least, 
All other stars and constellations 
Have cattle of all sorts of nations. 

4 The old Cosmographers, when they found vast places, whereof they 
knew nothing, used to fill the same with an account of Indian plantations, 
strange birds, beasts, &c. 



230 HTTDIBRAS. [PAST II* 

Nor those that, drawn for signs, have been 

To th' houses where the planets inn. 1 

It must be supernatural, 435 

Unless it be that cannon-ball 

That, shot i' the air, point-blank upright, 

"Was borne to that prodigious height, 

That, learn' d philosophers maintain, 

It ne'er came backwards down again, 2 440 

But in the airy regions yet 

Hangs, like the body o' Mahomet, 3 

For if it be above the shade, 

That by the earth's round bulk is made, 

'Tis probable it may from far, 445 

Appear no bullet, but a star. 

This said, he to his engine flew, 
Plac'd near at hand, in open view, 
And rais'd it, till it levell'd right 
Against the glow-worm tail of kite ; 4 ' 450 

Then peeping thro', Bless us ! quoth he, 
It is a planet now I see ; 
And if I err not, by his proper 
Figure, that's like tobacco-stopper, 5 
It should be Saturn : yes, 'tis clear 455 

'Tis Saturn ; but what makes him there ? 
He's got between the Dragon's tail, 
And further leg behind o' th' Whale ; 6 
Pray heav'n divert the fatal omen, 
For 'tis a prodigy not common, 460 

1 Signs, a pun on the signs for public-houses, and the signs or constella- 
tions in the heavens. The constellations are called " houses" by astrolo- 
gers. 

2 Some foreign philosophers directed a cannon towards the zenith ; and, 
having fired it without finding where the ball fell, conjectured that it had 
stuck in the moon. Des Cartes imagined that the ball remained in the air. 
See Tale of a Tub, p. 252. 

3 The story of Mahomet's body being suspended in an iron chest, be- 
- tween two great loadstones (which is not a Mahometan tradition), is re- 
futed by Sandys and Prideaux. 

4 The luminous part of the glow-worm is the tail. 

5 This alludes to the symbol of Saturn in some of the old books. As- 
trologers use a sign not much unlike it. 

6 On some old globes the Whale is represented with legs. 



CA^'TO III. J 11UDIEEAS. 231 

And can no less than the world's end, 1 
Or nature's funeral, portend. 
With that, he fell again to pry 
Thro' perspective more wistfully, 
"When, by mischance, the fatal string, 465 

That kept the tow'ring fowl on wing, 
Breaking, down fell the star. Well shot, 
Quoth Whaehum, who right wisely thought 
He 'd levell'd at a star, and hit it ; 
But Sidrophel, more subtle-witted, 470 

Cry'd out, What horrible and fearful 
Portent is this, to see a star fall ! 
It threatens nature, and the doom 
Will not be long before it come ! 
When stars do fall, 'tis plain enough 2 475 

The day of judgment's not far off; 
As lately 'twas reveal' d to Sedgwick, 3 
And some of us find out by magick : 
Then, since the time we have to live 
In this world's shorten' d, let us strive 480 

To make our best advantage of it, 
And pay our losses with our profit. 
This feat fell out not long before 
The Knight, upon the forenam'd score, 
In quest of Sidrophel advancing, 485 

Was now in prospect of the mansion ; 

1 " At sight thereof the people stand aghast, 
But the sage wizard telles, as he has redd, 
That it importunes deth, and doleful dreryhed." 

Fairy Queen, Book iii. Canto i. st. 16. 

2 This notion of falling stars was almost universal, until science showed 
the phenomenon to be both common and periodical. The theory is that 
these bodies are fragments traversing the planetary spaces, and at given 
times are drawn by the earth's attraction to her surface. 

3 Will. Sedgwick was a whimsical fanatic preacher, alternately a Presby- 
terian, an Independent, and an Anabaptist, settled by the Parliament in the 
city of Ely. He pretended much to revelations, and was called the apostle 
of the Isle of Ely. He gave out that the approach of the day of judgment 
had been disclosed to him in a vision ; and going to the house of Sir Francis 
ftussel, in Cambridgeshire, where be found several gentlemen at bowls, 
he warned them all to prepare themselves, for the day of judgment would 
be some day in the next week; whence he was nick-named Doomsday Sedg- 
wick. 



232 HTTDIBKAS. [PAET II. 

Whom he discov'ring, turn'd his glass, 
And found far off 'twas Hudibras. 

Whachum, quoth he, Look yonder, some 
To try or use our art are come : 490 

The one's the learned Knight ; 1 seek out, 
And pump 'em, what they come about. 
Whachum advanc'd with all submiss'ness 
T' accost 'em, but much more their bus'ness : 
He held the stirrup, while the Knight 495 

From Leathern Bare-bones 2 did alight ; 
And, taking from his hand the bridle, 
Approach'd the dark Squire to unriddle. 
He gave him first the time o' th' day, 3 
And welcom'd him, as he might say : 500 

He ask'd him whence they came, and whither 
Their bus'ness lay ? — Quoth Ralpho, Hither. 
Did you not lose ? 4 — Quoth Kalpho, Nay. 
Quoth Whachum, Sir, I meant your way ? 
Tour Knight — Quoth Ealpho, Is a lover, 505 

And pains intol'rable doth suffer ; 
For lovers' hearts are not their own hearts, 
Nor lights, nor lungs, and so forth downwards. 
What. time? — Quoth Ealpho, Sir, too long, 
Three years it off and on has hung — 510 

Quoth he, I meant what time o' th' day 'tis. 
Quoth Kalpho, Between seven and eight 'tis. 
Why then, quoth Whachum, my small art 
Tells me the Dame has a hard heart, 
Or great estate. — Quoth Kalph, A jointure, 515 

Which makes him have so hot a mind t' her. 



! It does not appear that Hudibras knew Sidrophel ; but from lines 1011 
and 1012, it is plain that Sidrophel knew Hudibras. It is extremely doubt- 
ful whether Lilly was personally acquainted with Sir Samuel Luke. 

2 In the early editions, Butler prints this word in italics, meaning a sly 
hit at that conspicuous member of Cromwell's First Parliament, Praisegod 
Barebones, the Leather-Seller. 

3 He bade him good evening : see line 540, on next page. 

i He assumes that they came to inquire after something stolen or strayed. 
In these lines we must observe the artfulness of "Whachum, who pumps the 
Squire concerning the Knight's business, and afterwards relates it to Sidro- 
phel in the presence of both of them, but in the cant terms of his own 
profession, a contrivance already alluded to in note on line 336, at p. 225. 



CA>'TO III.] HL'DIBEAS. 233 

Meanwhile the Knight was making water, 

Before he fell upon the matter : 

Which having done, the "Wizard steps in, 

To give him a suitable reception ; 520 

But kept his bus'ness at a Day, 

Till "Whaehum put him in the way ; 

"Who having now, by Balpho's light, 

Expounded th' errand of the Knight, 

And what he came to know, drew near, 525 

To whisper in the Conj'rer's ear, 

"Which he prevented thus : "What was't, 

Quoth he, that I was saying last, 

Before these gentlemen arriv'd ? 

Quoth "Whaehum, Venus you retriev'd J 530 

In opposition with Mars, 

And no benign and friendly stars 

T' allay the effect. 2 Quoth Wizard, So : 

In Virgo ? Ha ! quoth "Whaehum, ]S"o : 3 

Has Saturn nothing to do in it i" 1 535 

One-tenth of 's circle to a minute ! 

"lis well, quoth he — Sir, you'll excuse 

This rudeness I am fore'd to use ; 

It is a scheme, and face of heaven 

As th' aspects are dispos'd this even, 540 

I was contemplating upon 

"When you arriv'd ; but now I've done. 

Quoth Hudibras, if I appear 
Unseasonable in coming here 

At such a time, to interrupt 545 

Tour speculations, which I hop'd 
Assistance from, and come to use, 
'Tis fit that I ask your excuse. 

1 That is, found or observed. 

- Venus, the goddess of love, opposes and thwarts Mars, the god of war, 
and there is likely to be no accord between them; by which he' gives him 
to understand, that the Knight was in love, and had small hopes of success. 

3 Is his mistress a virgin ? No, therefore, by inference, a widow. 

4 Saturn being the god of time, the wizard by these words inquires how 
long the love affair had been carried on. "Whaehum replies, one-tenth of his 
circle to a minute, or three years ; one-tenth of the thirty years in which 
Saturn finishes his revolution, and exactly the time which the Knight's 
courtship had been pending. 



234 HUDIBRAS. [PAET II. 

By no means, Sir, quoth. Sidrophel, 
The stars your coming did foretell ; 550 

I did expect you here, and knew, 
Before you spake, 1 your business too. 

Quoth Hudibras, Make that appear, 
And I shall credit whatsoe'er 

Tou tell me after, on your word, 555 

Howe'er unlikely, or absurd. 

Tou are in love, Sir, with a widow, 
Quoth he, that does not greatly heed you, 
And for three years has rid your wit 
And passion, without drawing bit ; 560 

And now your business is to know 
If you shall carry her or no. 

Quoth Hudibras, You're in the right, 
But how the devil you come by't 
I can't imagine ; for the stars, 565 

I'm sure, can tell no more than a horse : 
Nor can their aspects, tho' you pore 
Your eyes out on 'em, tell you more 
Than th' oracle of sieve and sheers, 2 
That turns as certain as the spheres ; 570 

But if the Devil's of your counsel, 
Much may be done, my noble donzel ; 3 

1 Var. " Know before you speak," edit, of 1689. 

2 Scot thus describes this practice, which he calls Coscinomancy. "Put a 
paire of sheeres in the rim of a sieve, and let two persons set the tip of each 
of their forefingers upon the upper part of the sheers, holding it with the 
sieve up from the ground steadily, and ask St Peter and St Paul whether 
A. B. or C. hath stolen the thing lost, and at. the nomination of the guilty 
person the sieve will turne round." Discovery of Witchcraft, book xii. 
ch. xvii. 262. The Coskinomant, or diviner by a sieve, is mentioned by 
Theocritus, Idyll iii. 31 (Bohn's transl. p. 19). The Greek practice dif- 
fered very little from that which has been stated above. They tied a thread 
to the sieve, or fixed it to a pair of shears, which they held between two fin- 
gers. After addressing themselves to the gods, they repeated the names of 
the suspected persons ; and he, at whose name the sieve turned round, was 
adjudged guilty. This mode of divination was popular in rural districts to 
a very late period, and is not yet entirely exploded. See Brand's Popular 
Antiquities (Bohn's edit.), vol. iii. p. 351. 

3 Butler says, in his character of a Squire of Dames (Remains, vol. ii. 
p. 39), "he is donzel to the damzels, and gentleman usher daily waiter on 
the ladies, and rubs out his time in making legs and love to them." The 
word is likewise used in Ben Jonson's Alchemist. Donzel, a diminutive 



CANTO III.] nUDIBRAS. 235 

And 'tis on his account I come, 
To know from you my fatal doom. 

Quoth Sidrophel, If you suppose, 575 

Sir Knight, that I am one of those, 
I might suspect, and take the alarm, 
Your business is but to inform : ' 
But if it be, 'tis ne'er the near, 

Tou have a wrong sow by the ear ; 2 580 

For I assure you, for my part, 
I only deal by rules of art ; 
Such as are lawful, and judge by 
Conclusions of astrology ; 

But for the Devil, know nothing by him, 585 

But only this, that I defy him. 

Quoth he, Whatever others deem ye, 
I understand your metonymy ; 3 
Tour words of second-hand intention, 4 
When things by wrongful names you mention ; 590 
The mystic sense of all your terms, 
That are indeed but magic charms 
To raise the Devil, and mean one thing, 
And that is downright conjuring ; 
And in itself more warrantable 5 595 

Than cheat or canting to a rabble, 

of Don, is from the Italian donzello, and means a young squire, page, or 
gallant. 

1 That is, to lay an information against him, which would have exposed 
him to a prosecution, as at that time there was a severe inquisition against 
conjurers, witches, &c. See note on line 144, page 215. 

2 Handbook of Proverbs, p. 178. 

3 Metonymy is a figure of speech, whereby one word or thing is substi- 
tuted by representation for another, the cause is put for the effect, the subject 
for the adjunct, or vice versa; — as we say, a man "keeps a good table," or 
"we read Shakspeare," meaning his works. The term is here used in the 
sense of a juggle of words. 

4 "Words not used in their primary meaning. Terms of second intention, 
among the Schoolmen, denote ideas which have been arbitrarily adopted 
for purposes of science, in opposition to those which are connected with 
sensible objects. "Wliately says, "The first intention of a term is a certain 
vague and general signification of it, as opposed to one more precise aul 
.imited, which it bears in some particular art, science, or system, and which 
is called its second intention." (Book iii. § 10.) 

5 The Knight has no faith in astrology ; but wishes the conjurer to own 
plainly that he deals with the Devil, and then he will hope for some satisfac- 



236 HTTDIBRAS. [PAET II. 

Or putting tricks upon the moon, 

"Which by confederacy are done. 

Tour ancient conjurers were wont 

To make her from her sphere dismount, 1 600 

And to their incantations stoop ! 

They scorn' d to pore thro' telescope, 

Or idly play at bo-peep with her, 

To find out cloudy or fair weather, 

Which every almanack can tell, 605 

Perhaps as learnedly and well 

As you yourself — Then, friend I doubt 

Tou go the furthest way about : 

Your modest Indian Magician 

Makes but a hole in th' earth to piss in, 2 610 

And straight resolves all questions by't, 

And seldom fails to be i' th' right. 

The Rosy-crucian way's more sure 

To bring the Devil to the lure ; 

Each of 'em has a sev'ral gin, 615 

To catch intelligences in. 3 

Some by the nose, with fumes, trepan 'em, 

As Dunstan did the Devil's grannam. 4 

tion from him. To show what may be done in this way, he recounts the 
great achievements of sorcerers. 

1 So the witch Canidia, in Horace, Ep. XVII. line 78, boasts of her 
power to snatch the moon from heaven by her incantations. The ancients 
frequently introduced this fiction. See Virgil, Eclogue viii. 69 ; Ovid's 
Metamorphoses, vii. 207 ; Propertius, book i. elegy i. 19 ; and Tibullus, 
book i. elegy ii. 44. 

2 " The king presently called to his Bongi to clear the air ; the conjurer 
immediately made a hole in the ground, wherein he urined." Le Blanc's 
Travels, p. 98. The ancient Zabii used to dig a hole in the earth, and fill 
it with blood, as the means of forming a correspondence with demons, and 
obtaining their favour. 

3 To secure demons or spirits. 

4 The chemists and alchemists. In Butler's Bemains, vol. ii. p. 235, 
we read : " these spirits they use to catch by the noses with fumigations, as 
St Dunstan did the devil, by a pair of tongs." St Dunstan lived in the 
tenth century, and became successively abbot of Glastonbury, bishop of 
London and Worcester, and archbishop of Canterbury. He was a man of 
great learning, a student of the occult sciences, and proficient in the polite 
arts, particularly painting and sculpture. The legend runs, that as he was 
very attentively engraving a gold cup in his cell, the Devil tempted him 
in the shape of a beautiful woman. The saint, perceiving who it was, took 



CA>*TO ITI.] HTTDIBEAS. 237 

Others with characters and words 

Catch 'em, as men in nets do birds ; 1 620 

And some with symbols, signs, and tricks, 

Engrav'd in planetary nicks, 2 

"With their own influences will fetch 'em 

Down from their orbs, arrest, and catch 'em ; 

Make 'em depose, and answer to 625 

All questions, ere they let them go. 

Bombastus kept a devil's bird 

Shut in the pummel of his sword, 3 

That taught him all the cunning pranks 

Of past and future mountebanks. 630 

Kelly did all his feats upon 

The Devil's looking-glass, a stone, 4 

Where, playing with him at bo-peep, 

He solv'd all problems ne'er so deep. 

up a red-hot pair of tongs, and catching hold of the Devil by the nose, made 
him howl in such a terrible manner, as to be heard all over the neighbour- 
hood. 

1 By repetition of magical sounds and words, properly called enchant- 
ments. See Chaucer's Third Book of Fame. 

3 By signs and figures described according to astrological symmetry; 
that is, certain conjunctions or oppositions with the planets and aspects of 
the stars. 

3 Bombastus was the family name of Paracelsus, of whom see note at 
page 224. Butler's note on this passage in the edition of 1674, is as follows : 
" Paracelsus is said to have kept a small devil prisoner in the pummel of his 
sword ; which was the reason, perhaps, why he was so valiant in his drink. 
However, it was to better purpose than Hannibal carried poison in his 
to dispatch himself, if he should happen to be surprised in any great 
extremity ; for the sword would have done the feat alone much better and 
more soldier-like. And it was below the honour of so great a commander 
to go out of the world like a rat." 

4 Dr Dee had a stone, which he called his angelical stone, asserting 
that it was brought to him by the angels Raphael and Gabriel, with whom 
he pretended to be familiar. He told the emperor " that the angels of God 
had brought to him a stone of such value, that no earthly kingdom is of 
sufficient worthiness to be compared to the virtue or dignity thereof." It 
was large, round, and very transparent ; and persons who were qualified 
for the sight of it, were to perceive various shapes and figures, either repre- 
sented in it as in a looking-glass, or standing upon it as on a pedestal. This 
stone is now in the Department of Antiquities, British Museum. See Zad- 
kiel's Almanac for 1851, for an account of one of these crystal balls, which 
formerly belonged to Lady Blessington, and for the visions which were seen 
in it (?) in 1850. It is said that Dee's Angelical Stone, which was in the 



238 HUDLBRAS. [PAET II. 

Agrippa kept a Stygian pug, 635 

I' th' garb and habit of a dog, 1 

That was his tutor, and the cur 

Read to th' occult philosopher, 2 

And taught him subtly to maintain 

All other sciences are vain. 3 640 

To this, quoth Sidrophello, Sir, 
Agrippa was no conjurer, 
Nor Paracelsus, no, nor Behmen ; 4 
Nor was the dog a caeo-dsemon, 
But a true dog that would show tricks 645 

For th' emperor, and leap o'er sticks ; 
Would fetch and carry, was more civil 
Than other dogs, but yet no devil ; 
And whatsoe'er he's said to do, 

He went the self-same way we go. 650 

As for the Rosy-cross philosophers, 
"Whom you will have to be but sorcerers, 
What they pretend to is no more 
Than Trismegistus did before, 5 



Strawberry Hill Collection, turned out to be only a polisbed piece of cannel 
coal. 

1 As Paracelsus bad a devil confined in tbe pummel of bis sword, so 
" Agrippa bad one tied to bis dog's collar," says Erastus. It is probable 
„hat tbe collar bad some strange unintelligible cbaracters engraven upon 
it. Mr Butler (in edit. 1674) bas tbe following note on these lines : " Cor- 
nelius Agrippa bad a dog that was suspected to be a spirit, for some tricks 
be was wont to do beyond the capacity of a dog. But tbe author of Magia 
Adamica bas taken a great deal of pains to vindicate both the doctor and 
the dog from that aspersion ; in which he has shown a very great respect 
and kindness for them both." 

2 Meaning Agrippa, who wrote a book entitled, De Occulta Philosophia. 
See note at p. 25. 

3 Bishop Warburton says, nothing can be more pleasant than this turn 
given to Agrippa' s silly book, De Vanitate Scientiarum. 

4 Jacob Behmen or Bohmen, the inspired shoemaker, and theosophist, of 
Lusatia, was merely an enthusiast, who deluded himself in common with 
his followers. Law, Bishop of Carlisle, edited his works and gave them 
vogue in this country, and tbere are not wanting admirers of them even 
at the present day. 

5 The Egyptian deity Thoth, called Hermes by tbe Greeks, and Mercury 
by the Latins, from whom the early chemists pretended to have derived 
their art, is the mythical personification of almost all that is valuable to 
man. 



CANTO III.] HTJDIBEAS. 239 

Pythagoras, old Zoroaster, 1 655 

And Apollonius their master, 2 

To whom they do confess they owe 

All that they do, and all they know. 

Quoth Hudihras, — Alas, what is't t' us 
"Whether 'twere said hy Trismegistus, 660 

If it he nonsense, false, or mystick, 
Or not intelligible, or sophistick ? 
'Tis not antiquity, nor author, 
That makes Truth truth, altho' Time's daughter ; 3 
'Twas he that put her in the pit, 665 

Before he pull'd her out of it ; 4 

1 Little is known of Zoroaster, who is supposed to hare lived six cen- 
turies before the Christian era. Many miracles are attributed to him by the 
ancient writers, and he is the legendary founder of the religion of the old 
Persians, and reputed inventor of magic. Pythagoras, a Greek philosopher, 
flourished about the sixth or seventh century before Christ. He was the 
scholar of Thales, travelled in Egypt, Chaldea, and other parts of the East, 
and was initiated into all their mysteries ; and at last settled in Italy, where 
he founded the Italic sect. He commonly expressed himself by symbols. 
Many incredible stories are reported of him by Diogenes Laertius, Jamblicus, 
and others. 

2 Apollonius of Tyana lived in the time of Domitian. Many improbable 
wonders are related of him by Philostratus ; and more are added by sub- 
sequent writers. According to these accounts he raised the dead, rendered 
himself invisible, was seen at Rome and Puteoli on the same day, and pro- 
claimed at Ephesus the murder of Domitian at the very instant of its per- 
petration at Pome. This last fact is attested by Dio Cassius, the consular 
historian ; who, with the most vehement asseverations, affirms it to be 
certainly true, though it should be denied a thousand times over. Yet the 
same Dio elsewhere calls him a cheat and impostor. Dio, lxviii. ult. et lxxvii. 
18. The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, written by Philostratus, has been 
translated into English by Blount, 16S0, and by Berwick, 1809. Sceptics 
of all ages have been fond of comparing the feats of Apollonius with the 
miracles of Jesus Christ. 

3 The Knight argues that opinions are not always to be received on the 
authority of a great name ; nor does the antiquity of an opinion ever con- 
stitute the truth of it. 

4 Time brings truth to light, although it was time also which had concealed 
it. It often involves subjects in perplexity, and occasions those very diffi- 
culties which afterwards it helps to remove. Bishop "Warburton observes, 
that the satire contained in these lines of our author is fine and just. Cleanthes 
said that " truth was hid in a pit." " Yes," answers the poet ; " but you, 
Greek philosophers, were the first that put her in there, and then claimed 
so much merit to- yourselves for drawing her out." 



240 HTJDTBBAS. [PAET II 

And as he eats his sons, just so 

He feeds upon his daughters too. l 

Nor does it follow, 'cause a herald . 

Can make a gentleman, scarce a year old, 2 670 

To he descended of a race 

Of ancient kings in a small space, 

That we should all opinions hold 

Authentic, that we can make old. 

Quoth Sidrophel, It is no part 675 

Of prudence to cry down an art, 
And what it may perform, deny, 
Because you understand not why ; 
As Averrhoes play'd but a mean trick, 
To damn our whole art for eccentrick, 3 680 

For who knows all that knowledge contains ? 
Men dwell not on the tops of mountains, 
But on their sides, or rising's seat ; 
So 'tis with knowledge's vast height. 
Do not the hist'ries of all ages 685 

Relate miraculous presages 
Of strange turns in the world's affairs, 
Foreseen b' astrologers, soothsayers, 
Chaldeans, learn'd Genethliacks, 4 
And some that have writ almanacks ? 690 

1 If Truth is " Time's daughter," yet Saturn, or Time, may be none the 
kinder to her on that account. For, as poets feign that Saturn eats his 
sons, so he may also be supposed to feed upon his daughters. 

2 In all civil wars the order of things is subverted ; the poor become rich, 
and the rich poor. And they who suddenly gain riches seek, in the next 
place, to be furnished witb an honourable, pedigree, however fictitious. 
Many instances of this kind are preserved in Walker's History of Inde- 
pendency, Bate's Lives of the Eegicides, &c. But the satire applies to 
heraldic pedigrees generally. 

3 Averrhoes flourished in the twelfth century. He was a great critic, 
lawyer, and physician ; and one of the most subtle philosophers that ever 
appeared among the Arabians. He wrote a commentary upon Aristotle, 
from whence he obtained the surname of commentator. He much disliked 
the epicycles and eccentrics which Ptolemy had introduced into his system ; 
they seemed so absurd to him, that they gave him a disgust to the science 
of astronomy in general. He does not seem to have formed a more favour- 
able opinion of astrology, which he condemned as eccentric and fallacious, 
having no foundation in truth or certainty. 

4 Genethliaci, or Chaldeans, were soothsayers, who undertook to foretell 



C±yTO III.] HUDIBBAS. 241 

The Median emp'ror dream' d his daughter 
Had pist all Asia under water, 1 
And that a vine, sprung from her haunches, 
O'erspread his empire with its branches ; 
And did not soothsayers expound it, 695 

As after by th' event he found it ? 
"When Caesar in the senate fell, 
Did not the sun eclips'd foretell ; 
And in resentment of his slaughter, 
Look'd pale for almost a year after r 2 706 

Augustus having, b' oversight, 
Put on his left shoe 'fore his right, 3 
Had like to have been slain that day, 
By soldiers mutin'ing for pay. 

Are there not myriads of this sort, 705 

"Which stories of all times report ? 
Is it not ominous in all countries, 
, "When crows and ravens croak upon trees ? 4 
The Eoman senate, when within 
The city walls an owl was seen, 5 710 

Did cause their clergy, with lustrations, 
Our Syuod calls .Humiliations, 

the fortunes of men from circumstances attending their births, by casting 
their nativities. 

1 Astyages, king of Media, had this dream of his daughter Mandane ; 
and being alarmed at the interpretation which was given of it by the Magi, 
he married her to Cambyses, a Persian of mean quality. Her son was Cyrus, 
who fulfilled the dream by the conquest of Asia. See Herodotus, i. 107, 
and Justin. 

2 The prodigies, said to have preceded the death of Ctesar, are mentioned 
by several of the classics, Virgil, Ovid, Plutarch, &c. But the poet alludes 
to what is related by Pliny in his Natural History, ii. 30. See also Shak- 
speare for a full account of these prodigies, Jul. Cses. Act i. sc. 3. 

3 Pliny tells this tale, in his Second Book. See also Suetonius, lib. ii. s. 
29. The ascents to temples were always contrived so that the worshippers 
might set their right foot upon the uppermost step, as the ancients were 
superstitious in this respect. And we have an old English saying about 
putting the right foot foremost. (Handbook of Proverbs, p. 160.) 

4 Eavens, crows, mag-pies, and the like, have always been regarded as 
birds of ominous appearance. But the omens have been variously inter- 
preted in different ages and countries. In England if they croak against 
the sun it is for fine weather, if in the water it is for rain. Bishop Hall 
says, " If you hear but a raven croak from the next roof, make your will." 

5 See Julius Obsequens, No. 44, 45, and Lycosthenes, p. 194, 195. 

R 



242 HUDIBEAS. [PABT II. 

The round-fac'd prodigy t' avert • 
Prom doing town or country hurt. 
And if an owl have so much pow'r, 715 

"Why should not planets have much more, 
That in a region far ahove 
Inferior fowls of the air move, 
And should see further, and foreknow 
More than their augury below ? 720 

Tho' that once serv'd the polity 
Of mighty states to govern by ; 1 
And this is what we take in hand, 
By pow'rful art, to understand ; 

Which, how we have perform' d, all ages 725 

Can speak th' events of our presages. 
Have we not lately in the moon 
Pound a new world, to th' old unknown ? 2 
Discover'd sea and land, Columbus 
And Magellan could never compass ? 730 

Made mountains with our tubes appear, 
And cattle grazing on them there ? 
Quoth Hudibras, Tou lie so ope, 
That I, without a telescope, 

Can find your tricks out, and descry 735 

Where you tell truth and where you he : 
For Anaxagoras, long agone, 
Saw hills, as well as you, i' th' moon, 3 

1 It appears from many passages of Cicero, and other authors, that the 
determinations of the augurs, aruspices, and the sibylline books, were com- 
monly contrived to promote the ends of government, or to serve the pur- 
poses of the chief managers in the commonwealth. 

2 " The fame of Galileo's observations excited many others to repeat 
them, and to make maps of the moon's spots." The reference here, except 
in respect of the "cattle," is to the map of Hevelius in his Selenographia 
sive Limce Descriptio. See also the Cure of Melancholy, by Democritus, 
junior, p. 254. 

3 See Burnet's Archseolog. cap. x. p. 144. Anaxagoras of Clazomene 
was the first of the Ionic philosophers who maintained that the several parts 
of the universe were the works of a supreme intelligent being, and conse- 
quently did not allow the sun and moon to be gods. On this account he 
was accused of impiety, and thrown into prison ; but released by the inter- 
cession of Pericles, who had been one of his pupils. The poet might pro- 
bably have Bishop "Wilkins in view, whose book, maintaining that the moon 
was a habitable world, and proposing schemes for flying there, went 
through several editions between 1638 and 1684. 



KTO III.] HUDIBEAS. 243 

And held the sun was but a piece 

Of red-hot iron as big as Greece ; l 740 

Believ'd the heav'ns were made of stone, 

Because the sun had voided one ; 2 

And, rather than he would recant 

Th' opinion, suffer' d banishment. 

But what, alas ! is it to us, 745 

"Whether i' th' moon, men thus or thus 
Do eat their porridge, cut their corns, 
Or whether they have tails or horns ? 
"What trade from thence can you advance, 
But what we nearer have from France ? 750 

What can our travellers bring home, 
That is not to be learnt at Rome ? 
"What politics, or strange opinions, 
That are not in our own dominions ? 
What science can be brought from thence, 755 

In which we do not here commence ? 
What revelations, or religions, 
That are not in our native regions ? 
Are sweating-lanterns, 3 or screen-fans, 
Made better there than they're in France ? 760 

Or do they teach to sing and play, 
O' th' guitar there a newer way ? 
Can they make plays there, that shall fit 
The public humour with less wit ? 

In Butler's Remains we read 

For the ancients only took it for a piece 
Of red-hot iron, as hig as P " 



Alluding to one of the notions about the moon, attributed, no doubt falsely, 
to Anaxagoras. See his Life in Diogenes Laertius (Bohn's edit. p. 59, et 
seq.). 

2 Anaxagoras had foretold that a large stone would fall from heaven, and 
it was supposed to have been found soon afterwards near iEgospotamos. 
The fall of the stone is recorded in the Arundelian marbles. 

3 These lanterns, as the poet calls them, were boxes, wherein the whole 
body was placed, together with a lamp. They were used by quacks, in a 
certain disease, to bring on perspiration. See Swift's "Works, vol. vi. Pcthox 
the Great, v. 56, Hawkesworth's edition. Screen fans were used to shade 
the eyes from the fire, and commonly hung by the side of the chimney ; 
sometimes ladies carried them along with them : they were made of or- 
namented leather, paper, straw, or feathers. 

k2 



244 HUDIBKAS. [PABT IT. 

Write wittier dances, quainter shows, 765 

Or fight with more ingenious "blows ? 

Or does the man i' th' moon look big, 

And wear a huger periwig, 

Show in his gait or face more tricks, 

Than our own native lunaticks ? l 770 

But, if w' outdo him here at home, 

What good of your design can come ? 

As wind, i' th' hypocondres pent, 2 

Is but a blast, if downward sent ; 

But if it upward chance to fly, 775 

Becomes new light and prophecy ; 3 

So when our speculations tend 

Above their just and useful end, 

Altho' they promise strange and great 

Discoveries of things far fet, 780 



1 These and the foregoing lines were a satire upon the gait, dress, and 
carriage of the fops and beaux of those days. Long perukes had some 
years previously been introduced in France, and in our poet's time had come 
into great vogue in England. 

2 In the belly, under the short ribs. These lines were cleverly turned 
into Latin by Dr Harmer. 

Sic hypocondriacis inclusa meatibus aura 
Desinet in crepitum, si fertur prona per al 
Sed si summa petat, mentisque invaserit arcem 
Divinus furor est, et conscia flamma futuri. 

The subject seems to have afforded scope, or rather "given vent," to the 
wit of the day. In Domavii Amphitheatrum Sapientice Joco-serice, Hanov. 
1619, are several early pieces "de peditu," and a merry English writer 
gives the following joco-scientific definition of it. " A nitro-aerial vapour, 
exhaled from an adjacent pond of stagnant water, of a saline nature, and 
rarefied and sublimed into the nose of a microscopical alembic by the 
general heat of a stercorarius balneum, with a strong empyreuma, and 
forced through the posteriors by the compressive power of the compulsive 
faculty." 

3 New light was a phrase coined at that time, and used ever since for 
any new opinion in religion. In the north of Ireland, where the dissenters 
are chiefly divided into two sects, they are distinguished as the old and the 
new lights. The old lights are such as rigidly adhere to the old Calvinistic 
doctrine ; and the new lights are those who have adopted the more modern 
latitudinarian opinions : these are frequently hostile to each other, as 
their predecessors the Presbyterians and Independents were in the time of 
the Civil Wars. 



CANTO III.] HTTDIBRAS. 245 

They are but idle dreams and fancies, 

And savour strongly of the ganzas. 1 

Tell me but what's the natural cause, 

Why on a sign no painter draws 

The* full moon ever, but the half; — 785 

Eesolve that with your Jacob's staff; 2 

Or why wolves raise a hubbub at her, 

And dogs howl when she shines in water ; 

And I shall freely give my vote, 

Tou may know something more remote. 790 

At this, deep Sidrophel look'd wise, 
And staring round with owl-like eyes, 
He put his face into a posture 
Of sapience, and began to bluster ; 
For having three times shook his head 795 

To stir his wit up, thus he said : 
Art has no mortal enemies, 3 
Next ignorance, but owls and geese : 
Those consecrated geese, in orders, 
That to the Capitol were warders, 4 800 

And being then upon patrol, 
"With noise alone beat off the Gaul ; 
Or those Athenian sceptic owls, 
That will not credit their own souls, 5 

1 Godwin, afterwards bishop of Hereford, wrote in his youth, a kind of 
astronomical romance, under the feigned name of Domingo Gonzales, and 
entitled it The Man in the Moon, or a Discourse on a Voyage thither (pub- 
lished London, 1638). It gives an account of his being drawn up to the 
moon in a light vehicle, by certain birds called ganzas, a Spanish word 
for geese. The Knight here censures the pretensions of Sidrophel by com- 
paring them with this wild expedition. The poet likewise might intend 
to banter some of the aerial projects of the learned Bishop Wilkins. 

2 A mathematical instrument for taking the heights and distances of 
stars. 

3 "Etquodvulgo aiunt, artem non habere inimicum nisi ignorantem." 
Sprat thought it necessary to write many pages to show that natural phi- 
losophy was not likely to subvert our government, or our religion ; and that 
experimental knowledge had no tendency to make men either bad subjects or 
bad Christians. See Sprat's History of the Eoyal Society. 

* The garrison of a castle were called warders. The tale of the defeat of 
the night attack on the Capitol through the cackling of the sacred geese of 
Juno, is well known. See Livy's Eoman Hist. Book v. c. 77. 

5 Incredulous persons. He calls them owls because that bird was the 
emblem of wisdom ; and Athenian, because that bird was sacred to Minerva, 



246 HUDIBRAS. [PABT II. 

Or any science understand, 805 

Beyond the reach of eye or hand ; 
But measuring all things by their own 
Knowledge, hold nothing's to be known : 
Those wholesale critics, that in coffee- 
Houses cry down all philosophy, 810 
And will not know upon what ground 
In nature we Our doctrine found, 
Altho' with pregnant evidence 
We can demonstrate it to sense, 

As I just now have done to you, 815 

Foretelling what you came to know. 
"Were the stars only made to light 
Bobbers and burglarers by night ? ' 
To wait on drunkards, thieves, gold-finders, 
And lovers solacing behind doors ? 820 

Or giving one another pledges 
Of matrimony under hedges ? 
Or witches simpling, and on gibbets 
Cutting from malefactors snippets ? 2 
Or from the piU'ry tips of ears 825 

Of rebel-saints and perjurers ? 
Only to stand by, and look on, 
But not know what is said or done ? 
Is there a constellation there 

That was not born and bred up here ; 830 

And therefore cannot be to learn 
In any inferior concern ? 

the protectress of Athens. Since the owl, however, is usually considered a 
moping, drowsy bird, the poet intimates that the knowledge of these sceptics 
is obscure, confused, and undigested. The meaning of the whole passage is : 
that there are two sorts of men, who are great enemies to the advancement 
of science ; the first, bigoted divines, who, upon hearing of any new discovery 
in nature, apprehend an attack upon religion, and proclaim loudly that the 
Capitol, i. e. the faith of the church, is in danger ; the others, self-sufficient 
philosophers, who lay down arbitrary principles, and reject every truth 
which does not coincide with them. 

1 Sidrophel argues, that so many luminous bodies could never have been 
constructed for the sole purpose of affording a little light, in the absence 
of the sun ; but his reasoning does not contribute much to the support of 
astrology. 

2 Collecting herbs, and other requisites, for their enchantments. See 
Shakspeare's Macbeth, Act iv. 



OAFTO III.] HUDIBRAS. 247 

"Were they not, during all their lives, 

Most of 'era pirates, whores, and thieves ? 

And is it like they have not still 835 

In their old practices some skill ? 

Is there a planet that by birth 

Does not derive its house from earth ; 

And therefore probably must know 

What is, and hath been done below ? 840 

"Who made the Balance, or whence came 

The Bull, the Lion, and the Bam ? 

Did not we here the Argo rig, 

Make Berenice's periwig? 1 

"Whose liv'ry does the Coachman 2 wear ? 845 

Or who made Cassiopeia's chair? 3 

And therefore, as they came from hence, 

With us may hold intelligence. 

Plato deny'd the world can be 

Govern' d without geometry, 4 850 

For money b'ing the common scale 

Of things by measure, weight, and tale, 

In all th' affairs of church and state, 

'Tis both the balauce and the weight : 

Then much less can it be without 855 

Divine astrology made out, 

That puts the other down in worth, 

As far as heaven's above earth. 

These reasons, quoth the Knight, I grant 
Are something more significant 860 

Than any that the learned use 
Upon this subject to produce ; 

1 Meaning the constellation called Coma Berenices. Berenice, the wife of 
Ptolemy Evergetes, king of Egypt, made a vow when her husband under- 
took his expedition into Syria, that if he returned safe she would cut off 
and dedicate her hair to Venus, and this, on his return, she fulfilled. The 
offering by some accident being lost, Conon, the mathematician, to soothe 
her feelings, declared that her hair was carried up to hea-ven, where it was 
formed into seven stars, near the tail of the Lion. Hence the constellation 
of this name. 

2 The constellation Auriga, near that of Cassiopeia ; which lies near those 
of Cepheus, Perseus, and Andromeda. 

3 A constellation in the northern hemisphere, consisting of 55 stars. 

4 Plato, out of fondness for geometry, employed it in all his systems. 
He used to say that the Deity governed the world on geometrical principles, 
performing everything by weight and measure. 



248 HUDIBRAS. [PABT II. 

And yet they're far from satisfactory, 

T' establish and keep up your factory. 

Th' Egyptians say, the sun has twice l 865 

Shifted his setting and his rise ; 

Twice has he risen in the west, 

As many times set in the east ; 

But whether that he true or no, 

The devil any of you know. 870 

Some hold, the heavens, like a top, 

Are kept by circulation up, 2 

And were't not for their wheeling round, 

They'd instantly fall to the ground : 

As sage Empedocles of old, 3 875 

And from him modern authors hold. 

Plato believ'd the sun and moon 

Below all other planets run. 4 

Some Mercury, some Venus seat 

Above the sun himself in height. 880 

1 The Egyptian priests informed Herodotus that, in the space of 11,340 
years, the sun had four times risen and set out of its usual course, rising 
twice where it now sets, and setting twice where it now rises. See Herodo- 
tus (Bonn's transl. p. 152). Spenser alludes to this supposed miracle in 
his Fairy Queen, book v. c. 1, stanza 6, et seq. Such a pheenomenon might 
have been observed by some who had ventured beyond the equator, to the 
south, exploring the continent of Africa ; for there, to any one standing 
with his face to the sun at noon, it would appear that the sun had risen on 
his right hand, and was about to set on his left. 

2 It is mentioned as one of the opinions of Anaxagoras, that the heaven 
was composed of stone, and was Ttept up by violent circumrotation, but 
woidd fall when the rapidity of that motion should be remitted. Some do 
Anaxagoras the honour to suppose, that this _conceit of his, gave the first 
hint towards the modern theory of the planetary motions. 

3 Empedocles was a philosopher of Agrigentum, in Sicily, of the 5th cent. 
b. c. He was equally famous for his knowledge of natural history and 
medicine, and as a poet and a statesman ; and it is generally related that he 
threw himself into Mount Etna, so that by suddenly disappearing he might 
establish his claim to divinity, but Diogenes Laertius gives a more rational 
account of his death. He maintained the motions of the sun and the 
planets ; but held that the stars were composed of fire, and fixed in a crystal 
sphere, and that the sun was a body of fire. Some of these opinions are 
embodied in Shakspeare's familiar lines : 

" Doubt that the stars are fire 
Doubt that the sun doth move," &c. 
* The Knight further argues, that there can be no foundation for truth in 
astrology, since the learned differ so much about the planets 
from which astrologers chiefly drew their predictions. 



caxto in.] nrDiBEAS. 249 

The learned Scaliger complain' d 

'Gainst what Copernicus maintain'd, 1 

That in twelve hundred years, and odd, 2 

The sun had left his ancient road, 

And nearer to the Earth is come, 885 

'Bove fifty thousand miles from home : 

Swore 'twas a most notorious flam, 

And he that had so little shame 

To vent such fopperies abroad, 

Deserv'd to have his rump well claw'd : 890 

Which Monsieur Bodin hearing, swore 

That he deserv'd the rod much more, 3 

That durst upon a truth give doom, 

He knew less than the pope of Rome. 4 

Cardan believ'd great states depend 895 

Upon the tip o' th' Bear's tail's end; 5 

That as she whisk'd it t'wards the sun, 

Strow'd mighty empires up and down ; 

1 Copernicus thought that the eccentricity of the sun, or the obliquity of 
the ecliptic, had been diminished by many parts since the times of Ptolemy 
and Hipparchus. On which Scaliger observed that the writings of Co- 
pernicus deserved a sponge, or their author a rod. 

2 Instead of this and the seven following lines, the editions of 1664 read : 

About the sun's and earth's approach, 
And swore that he, that dar'd to broach 
Such paltry fopperies abroad, 
Deserv'd to have his rump well claw'd. 

3 John Bodin, au eminent geographer and lawyer, born at Angers, died 
at Laon, 1596, aged 67. He agreed with Copernicus, and other famous 
astronomers, that the circle of the earth had approached nearer to the sun than 
it was formerly. He was alternately superstitious and sceptical ; and is 
said to have been at different times, a Protestant, a Papist, a deist, a sorcerer, 
a Jew, and an atheist. 

4 Var. He knew no more than th' pope of Rome, in the editions of 1664. 

5 Cardan, a physician and astrologer, born at Pavia, 1501. He held that 
particular stars influenced particular countries, and that the fate of the 
greatest kingdoms in Europe was determined by the tail of Ursa Major. 
He cast the nativity of Edward VI., and foretold his death, it is said, cor- 
rectly. He then foretold the time of his own death, and when the clay drew 
near, finding himself in perfect health, he starved himself to death, rather 
than disgrace his science. Scaliger said that in certain things he appeared 
superior to human understanding, and in a great many others inferior to that 
of little children. See Bayle's Diet. Tennemann's History of Philosophy, 
p. 263. 



250 HTJDIBKAS. [PAET II. 

' "Which others say must needs be false, 
Because your true bears have no tails. 1 900 

Some say, the zodiac constellations 2 
Have long since chang'd their antique stations 3 
Above a sign, and prove the same 
In Taurus now, once in the Earn ; 
Affirm' d the Trigons chopp'd and chang'd, 905 

The wat'ry with the fiery rang'd ; 4 
Then how can their effects still hold 
To be the same they were of old ? 
This, though the art were true, would make 
Our modern soothsayers mistake, 5 910 

And is one cause they tell more lies, 
In figures and nativities, 
Than th' old Chaldean conjurers, 
In so many hundred thousand years ; 6 
Beside their nonsense in translating, 915 

Eor want of accidence and Latin ; 



1 This was a vulgar error, originating in the shortness of the hear's tail. 

2 In the editions of 1664, this and the following lines stand thus : 

Some say the stars i' th' zodiac 
Are more than a whole sign gone back 
Since Ptolemy ; and prove the same 
In Taurus now, then in the Earn. 

The alteration was made in the edition of 1674. 

3 The Knight, still further to lessen the credit of astrology, observes that 
the stars have suffered a considerable variation of their longitude, by the 
precession of the equinoxes ; for instance, the first star of Aries, which in 
the time of Meton the Athenian was found in the very intersection of the 
ecliptic and equator, is now removed eastward more than thirty degrees, so 
that the sign Aries possesses the place of Taurus, Taurus that of Gemini, 
and so on. 

i The twelve signs are in astrology divided into four trigons, each named 
after one of the four elements : accordingly there are three fiery, three airy, 
three watery, and three earthly. 

Fiery — Aries, Leo, Sagittarius. 

Earthly — Taurus, Virgo, Capricornus. 

Airy — Gemini, Libra, Aquarius. 

Watery — Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces. 

5 See Dr Bentley's Boyle Lectures. Sermon iii. 

6 The Chaldeans, as Cicero remarks, pretended to have been in 
sion of astrological knowledge for the space of 47,000 years #j 



CANTO III.] HTTDIBRAS. 251 

Like Idus and Calendce Englisht 

The Quarter-days, by skilful linguist. 1 

And yet with canting, slight, and cheat, 

'Twill serve their turn to do the feat ; 920 

Make fools believe in their foreseeing 

Of things before they are in being ; 

To swallow gudgeons ere they're catch' d, 

Arid count their chickens ere they're hatch'd; 2 

Make them the constellations prompt, 925 

And give 'em back their own accompt ; 

But still the best to him that gives 

The best price for't, or best believes. 

Some towns and cities, some for brevity, 

Have cast the 'versal world's nativity, 930 

And made the infant stars confess, 

Like fools or children, what they please. 

Some calculate the hidden fates 

Of monkeys, puppy-dogs, and cats ; 

Some rvurning nags, and fighting-cocks, 935 

Some love, trade, law-suits, and the pox : 

Some take a measure of the lives 

Of fathers, mothers, husbands, wives ; 

Make opposition, trine, and quartile, 

Tell who is barren, and who fertile ; 940 

As if the planet's first aspect 

The tender infant did infect 3 

1 Mr Smith, of Harleston, says this is probably a banter upon Sir Richard 
Fanshawe's translation of Horace, Epod. ii. 69, 70. 

Omnem relegit idibus pecuniam, 

Quserit calendis ponere. 
At Michaelmas calls all his monies in, 
And at our Lady puts them out again. 
The loth of March, May, July, and October, and the 13th of all other 
months, were the Ides. The 1st of every month was the Calends. 

2 Handbook of Proverbs, pp. 81, &c. See also L'Estrange's Fables, 
Part ii. fab. 205, and Spectator, No. 535. 

3 The accent is laid upon the last syllable of aspect. Astrologers reckon 
five aspects of the planets : conjunction, sextile, quartile, trine, and opposi- 
tion. Sextile denotes their being distant from each other a sixth part of a 
circle, or two signs ; quartile, a fourth part, or three signs ; trine, a third 
part, or four signs ; opposition, half the circle, or directly opposite. It 
was the opinion of judicial astrologers, that whatever good disposition the 
infant might otherwise have been endued with, yet if its birth was, by any 



252 HUDIBRAS. [PAET II. 

In soul and body, and instil 

AH future good and future ill ; 

Which in their dark fatal'ties lurking, 945 

At destin'd periods fall a working, 

And break out, like the hidden seeds 

Of long diseases, into deeds, 

In friendships, enmities, and strife, 

And all th' emergencies of life : 950 

No sooner does he peep into 

The world, but he has done his do, 

Catch'd all diseases, took all physick, 

That cures or kills a man that is sick ; 

Marry'd his punctual dose of wives, 1 955 

Is cuckolded, and breaks, or thrives. 

There's but the twinkling of a star' 

BetAveen a man of peace and war ; 

A thief and justice, fool and knave, 

A huffing off'cer and a slave ; 960 

A crafty lawyer and pick-pocket, 

A great philosopher and a blockhead ; 

A formal preacher and a player, 

A learn' d physician and man-slayer : 

As if men from the stars did suck 965 

Old age, diseases, and ill luck, 

Wit, folly, honour, virtue, vice, 

Trade, travel, women, claps, and dice ; 

And draw, with the first air they breathe, 

Battle, and murder, sudden death. 2 970 

Are not these fine commodities 

To be imported from the skies, 

accident, so accelerated or retarded, that it fell in with the predominance of 
a malignant constellation, this momentary influence would entirely change its 
nature, and bias it to all contrary ill qualities. See a fine banter on this 
foolish notion, in Hotspur's reply to Glendower's astrology, in Henry the 
Fourth, Part I. Act iii. 

1 " Punctual dose " is the precise number of wives to which he was pre- 
destined by the planetary influence predominant at his birth. An old pro- 
verb says, the first confers matrimony, the second company, the third 
heresy. 

2 This is one of the petitions in the litany, which the dissenters object- 
ed to ; especially the words sudden death. See Bennet's London Cases 
abridged, ch. iv. p. 100. 



CA>~TO III.] HUDIBEAS. 253 

And vended here among the rabhle, 

For staple goods, and warrantable ? 

Like money by the Druids borrow'd, 075 

In th' other world to be restored. 1 

Quoth Sidrophel, To let you know 
Tou wrong the art and artists too : 
Since arguments are lost on those 
That do our principles oppose, 980 

I will, altho' I've don't before, 
Demonstrate to your sense once more, 
And draw a figure that shall tell you 
What you, perhaps, forget befell you ; 
By way of horary inspection, 2 985 

Which some account our worst erection. 

"With that, he circles draws, and squares, 
With cyphers, astral characters, 
Then looks 'em o'er to understand 'em, 
Altho' set down hab-nab at random. 3 S90 

Quoth he, This scheme of th' heavens set, 
Discovers how in fight you met, 
At Kingston, with a may-pole idol, 4 
And that y' were bang'd both back and side well ; 

1 That is, astrologers, by endeavouring to persuade men that the stars 
have dealt out to them their future fortunes, are guilty of a similar fraud 
with the Druids, who borrowed money on a promise of repaying it after 
death. This practice among the Druids was founded on their doctrine of 
the immortality of the soul. Purchas speaks of some who barter with the 
people upon bills of exchange to be paid a hundred for one, in heaven. 

2 The horoscope is the point of the heavens which rises above the eastern 
horizon, at any particular moment. 

3 X ares says, habbe or nabbe ; have or have not, hit or miss, at a venture : 
quasi, have or n'ave, i. e. have not ; as nill for will not. " The citizens in 
their rage imagining that every post in the churche had bin one of their 
souldyers, shot habbe or nabbe, at random." Holiushed, Hist, of Ireland. 
F. 2, col. 2. 

4 Butler here alludes to the spurious second part of Hudibras, published 
1663. The first annotator informs us that "there was a notorious idiot, 
here described by the name of Whacum; who had counterfeited a second 
part of Hudibras, as untowardly as Captain Po, who could not write himself, 
and yet made shift to stand in the Pillory for forging other men's hands, 
as this fellow Whacum no doubt deserved. In this spurious production, the 
rencounters of Hudibras at Brentford, the transactions of a mountebank 
whom he met with, and probably these adventures of the may-pole at 
Kingston, are described at length. By drawing on that spurious pub- 



254 HUDIBRAS. [PABT II. 

And tho' you overcame the bear, 996 

The dogs beat you at Brentford fair ; 
Where sturdy butchers broke your noddle, 
And handled you like a fop-doodle. 1 

Quoth Hudibras, I now perceive 
Tou are no conj'rer, by your leave ; 1000 

That paltry story is untrue, 
And forg'd to cheat such gulls as you. 

Not true ? quoth he ; howe'er you vapour, 
I can what I affirm make appear ; 
"Whachum shall justify 't to your face, 1005 

And prove he was upon the place : 
He play'd the saltinbancho's part, 2 
Transform' d t' a Frenchman by my art ; 
He stole your cloak, and pick'd your pocket, 
Chous'd and caldes'd you like a blockhead, 3 1010 

And what you lost I can produce, 
If you deny it, here i'the house. 

Quoth Hudibras, I do believe 
That argument's demonstrative ; 
Ealpho, bear witness, and go fetch us 1015 

A constable to seize the wretches : 
For tho' they're both false knaves and cheats, 
Impostors, jugglers, counterfeits, 
I'll make them serve for perpendic'lars, 
As true as e'er were us'd by bricklayers : 4 1020 

They're guilty, by their own confessions, 
Of felony, and at the sessions, 
Upon the bench I will so handle 'em, 
That the vibration of this pendulum 

lication for incidents in our hero's life, the astrologer betrays his ignorance 
of the facts, and Butler ingeniously contrives to publish the cheat. 

1 That is, a silly, vain, empty-pated fellow. 

2 Saltimbanque is a French word, signifying a quack or mountebank. 
Perhaps it was originally Italian. 

3 Caldes'd is a word of the poet's own coining, and signifies, in the 
opinion of "Warburton, " putting the fortune-teller upon you," as the Chal- 
deans were great fortune-tellers. Others suppose it may be derived from 
the Caldees, or Culdees. In Butler's Bemains, vol. i. 24, it seems to 
mean hoodwinked or blinded. 

Asham'd that men so grave and wise 
Should be chaldes'd by gnats and flies. 

4 i. e. perfectly true or upright, like a bricklayer's plumb-line. 



CA>"TO III.] HTTDIBKA8. 255 

Shall make all tailors yards of one 1025 

Unanimous opinion : l 

A thing he long has vapour' d of, 

But now shall make it out by proof. 

Quoth Sidrophel, I do not doubt 
To find friends that will bear me out : 2 1030 

IS" or have I hazarded my art, 
And neck, so long on the State's part, 
To be expos' d i' th' end to suffer 
By such a braggadocio buffer. 3 

Huffer ! quoth Hudibras, this sword 1035 

Shall down thy false throat cram that word. 
Balpho, make haste, and call an officer, 
To apprehend this Stygian sophister ; 4 
Meanwhile I'll hold 'em at a bay, 
Lest he and Whachurn run away. 1040 

1 The device of the vibration of a pendulum was intended to settle a 
certain measure of ells, yards, &c, all the -world over, which should have 
its foundation in nature. For by swinging a weight at the end of a string, 
and calculating, by the motion of the sun or any star, how long the vibra- 
tion would last, in proportion to the length of the string and weight of the 
pendulum, they thought to reduce it back again, and from any part of time 
compute the exact length of any string, that must necessarily vibrate for 
such a period of time. So that if a man should ask in China for a quarter 
of an hour of satin or taffeta, they would know perfectly well what he meant ; 
and the measure of things would be reckoned no more by the yard, foot, or 
inch, but by the hour, quarter, and minute. See Butler's Remains by 
Thyer, vol. i. p. 30, for the following illustration of this notion : 

By which he had composed a pedlar's jargon, 

For all the world to learn and use to bargain, 

An universal canting idiom 

To understand the swinging pendulum, 

And to communicate in all designs 

With th' Eastern virtuoso mandarines. 

Elephant in the Moon. 

The moderns perhaps will not be more successful in their endeavours to 
establish a universal standard of weights and measures. 

2 William Lilly wrote and prophesied for the Parliament, till he per- 
ceived their influence decline. He then changed sides, but having de- 
clared himself rather too soon, he was taken into custody ; and escaped only, 
as he tells us himself, by the interference of friends, and by cancelling the 
offensive leaf in his almanack. 

3 Huff means to bully or brow-beat. 

4 i. e. hellish sophister. 



256 HTTDIBBAS. [PAET II. 

But Sidrophel, who from the aspect 
Of Hudibras, did now erect 
A figure worse portending far, 
Than that of most malignant star ; 
Believ'd it now the fittest moment 1045 

To shun the danger that might come on't, 
While Hudibras was all alone, 
And he and Whachum, two to one : 
This being resolv'd, he spy'd by chance, 
Behind the door an iron lance, 1 1050 

That many a sturdy limb had gor'd, 
And legs, and loins, and shoiuders bor'd ; 
He snatch'd it up, and made a pass, 
To make his way thro' Hudibras. 
"Whachum had got a fire-fork, 2 1055 

With which he vow'd to do his work ; 
But Hudibras was well prepar'd, 
And stoutly stood upon his guard : 
He put by Sidrophello's thrust, 

And in right manfully he rusht, 1060 

The weapon from his gripe he wrung, 
And laid him on the earth along. 
Whachum his sea-coal prong threw by, 
And basely turn'd his back to fly ; 
But Hudibras gave him a twitch 1065 

As quick as lightning in the breech, 
Just in the place where honour's lodg'd, 3 
As wise philosophers have judg'd ; 
Because a kick in that part more 
Hurts honour, than deep wounds before. 1070 

Quoth Hudibras, The stars determine 
Tou are my prisoners, base vermin. 
Could they not tell you so, as well 
As what I came to know, foretell ? 

1 A spit for roasting meat. 

2 Spelt " fier-fork " in the old editions, so as to make fire a dissyllable. 

3 Butler, in Ms speech at the Eota, says (Genuine Eemains, vol. i. p. 
323) : " Some are of opinion that honour is seated in the rump only, chiefly 
at least : for it is observed, that a small kick on that part does more hurt 
and wound honour than a cut on the head or face, or a stab, or a shot of a 
pistol, on any other part of the body." 



ca^to in.] nrDiBEAS. 257 

By this, what cheats you are, we find, 1075 

That in your own concerns are blind. 1 

Tour lives are now at my dispose, 

To be redeem'd by fine or blows : 

But who his honour would defile, 

To take, or sell, two lives so vile ? 1080 

I'll give you quarter ; but your pillage, 

The conqu'ring warrior's crop and tillage, 

Which with his sword he reaps and plows, 

That's mine, the law of arms allows. 

This said in haste, in haste he fell 1085 

' To rummaging of Sidrophel. 
Pirst, he expounded both his pockets, 
And found a watch with rings and lockets, 
Which had been left with him t'erect 
A figure for, and so detect. 1090 

A copper-plate with almanacks 
Engrav'd upon't, with other knacks 2 
Of Booker's, Lilly's, Sarah Jimmers', 3 
And blank schemes to discover nimmers ; 4 
A moon-dial, with Napier's bones, 5 1095 

And sev'ral constellation stones, 

1 "Astrologers," says Agrippa, "while they gaze on the stars for direc- 
tion, fall into ditches, wells, and gaols," that is, while they foretell what is 
to happen to others, cannot tell what will happen to themselves. The crafty 
Tiberius, not content with a promise of empire, examined the astrologer 
concerning his own horoscope, intending to drown him on the least ap- 
pearance of falsehood. But Thrasyllus was too cunning for him, and im- 
mediately answered " that he perceived himself at that instant to he in 
imminent danger ; " and added, " that he was destined to die just ten years 
before the emperor himself." Tacit. Ann. vi. 21 ; Dio. lviii. 27. 

2 That is, marks or signs belonging to the astrologer's art. Knack also 
signifies a bauble. 

" 3 Three astrologers. John Booker was born at Manchester in 1601, and 
after being apprenticed to a haberdasher, became clerk first to a justice of 
the peace and afterwards to a London aldennan. He is said to have had 
great skill in judging of thefts. Lilly has frequently been mentioned. 
Sarah Jimmers, called by Lilly, Sarah Skilhorn, was a great speculatrix, or 
medium, as she would now be called. She was celebrated for the power of 
her eyes in looking into a speculum, and Lilly tells a strange story of 
angels showing her a red waistcoat being taken out of a trunk at 12 miles 
distance and the day before the act. 
4 From the Anglo-Saxon niman, meaning thieves or pilferers. 
' Lord Napier of Mercbiston, the inventor of Logarithms, also invented 



258 HTTDIBB.AS. [PAET II. 

EngraVd in planetary hours, 

That over mortals had strange powers 

To make them thrive in law or trade, 

And stab or poison to evade ; lioo 

In wit or wisdom to improve, 

And be victorious in love. 

Whachum had neither cross nor pile, 1 

His plunder was not worth the while ; 

All which the conqu'ror did discompt, 1105 

To pay for curing of his rump. 

But Sidrophel, as full of tricks 
As Bota-ruen of politics, 2 
Straight cast about to over-reach 
Th' unwary conqu'ror with a fetch, 1110 

And make him glad at least to quit 
His victory, and fly the pit, 
Before the secular prince of darkness 3 
Arriv'd to seize upon his carcass : 
And, as a fox with hot pursuit, 4 1115 

Chas'd through a warren, cast about 
To save his credit, and among 
Dead vermin on a gallows hung.; 



a contrivance for performing multiplication. The numbers were 
little square rods, which, being made of ivory, were called Napier's bones. 
His lordship was one of the early members of the Eoyal Society, which 
the poet takes frequent occasions to banter. 

1 Money frequently bore a cross on one side, and the head of a spear or 
arrow (pilum) on the other. Cross and pile were ou^ heads and tails. 
Thus Swift says, " This I humbly conceive to be perfect boy's play ; cross, 
I win, and pile, you lose." 

2 Harrington, having devised the scheme of popular government which is 
described in his Oceana, endeavoured to promote it by a club, of which 
Henry Nevil, Charles Wolseley, John Wildman, and Doctor (afterwards 
Sir William) Petty, were members, which met in New Palace-yard, West- 
minster. This club was called the Rota, in consequence of a proposal that, 
in the projected House of Commons, a third part of the members should 
" rote out by ballot every year," and be ineligible for three years. 

3 The constable who keeps the peace at night. 

4 Olaus Magnus has related many such stories of the fox's cunning : his 
imitating the barking of a dog ; feigning himself dead ; ridding himself of 
fleas, by going gradually into the water with a lock of wool in his mouth, 
and when the fleas are driven into it, leaving the wool in the water ; catch- 
ing crab-fish with his tail, all of which the author avers to be truth on his 
own knowledge. 01. Mag. Hist. i. 18. 



CANTO III.] nrDIBBAS. 259 

And while the dogs ran underneath, 

Escap'd, by counterfeiting death, 1120 

Not out of cunning, but a train 

Of atoms justling in his brain, 1 

As learn' d philosophers give out ; 

So Sidrophello cast about, 

And fell to 's wonted trade again, 1125 

To feign himself in earnest slain : 2 

First stretch'd out one leg, then another, 

And, seeming in his breast to smother 

A broken sigh, quoth he, Where am I ? 

Alive, or dead ? or which way came I 1130 

Thro' so immense a space so soon ? 

But now I thought myself i' th' moon ; 

And that a monster with huge whiskers, 

More formidable than a Switzer's, 

My body thro' and thro' had drill' d, 1135 

And Whachum by my side had kill'd, 

Had cross-examin'd both our hose, 3 

And plunder' d all we had to lose ; 

Look, there he is, I see him now, 

And feel the place I am run thro' : 1140 

And there lies Whachum by my side, 

Stone dead and in his own blood dy'd, 

Oh ! oh ! With that he fetch' d a groan, 

And fell again into a swoon ; 

Shut both his eyes, and stopt his breath, 1145 

And to the life out-acted death, 

That Hudibras, to all appearing, 

Believ'd him to be dead as herrinp-. 4 



1 The ancient atomic philosophers, Democritus, Epicurus, &c, held that 
sense in brutes, and cogitation and volition in men, were produced by the 
impression of corporeal atoms on the brain. But the author perhaps meant 
to ridicule Sir Kenelm Digby, who relates this story of the fox, and main- 
tains that there was no thought or cunning in it, but merely a particular 
disposition of atoms. 

2 See the scene of Falstaff s counterfeited death, Shakspeare, Henry IV., 
Part I. Act v. 

3 Trunk-hose with pockets to them. 

* Shakspeare refers to this proverb in Merry Wives, II. 3. See also 
Bohn's Handbook of Proverbs, p. 187. 
s 2 



260 HTTDIBBAS. ' [PABT II. 

He held it now no longer safe, 

To tarry the return of Ralph, . 1150 

But rather leave him in the lurch : ! 

Thought he, he has abus'd our church, 2 

Refused to give himself one firk, 

To carry on the Public work ; 

Despis'd our Synod-men like dirt, 1155 

And made their Discipline his sport ; 

Divulg'd the secrets of their Classes, 

And their Conventions prov'd high places ; 3 

Disparag'd their tithe-pigs, as pagan, 

And set at nought their cheese and bacon ; 1160 

Bail'd at their Covenant, 4 and jeer'd 

Their rev'rend parsons, to my beard ; 

For all which scandals, to be quit 

At once, this juncture falls out fit. 

I'll make him henceforth to beware, 1165 

And tempt my fury, if he dare : 

He must, at least, hold up his hand, 5 

By twelve freeholders to be scann'd ; 

Who by their skill in palmistry, 6 

"Will quickly read his destiny, 1170 

And make him glad to read his lesson, 

Or take a turn for't at the session : 7 

Unless his Light and Gifts prove truer 

Than ever yet they did, I'm sure ; 

For if he 'scape with whipping now, 1175 

'Tis more than he can hope to do : 

1 The different sects of dissenters left each other in the lurch, whenever 
an opportunity offered of promoting their own separate interest. In this 
instance they made a separate peace with the King, as soon as they found 
that the Independents were playing their own game. 

2 This and the following lines show that Hudibras represents the Pres- 
byterians, and Ralpho the Independents, all the principal words being 
party catchwords. 

3 That is, corruptions in discipline. "When the devil tempted Christ 
he set him upon the highest pinnaple of the temple. Great preferments are 
great temptations." Butler's Eemains. 

4 The Independents called the Covenant an almanack out of date. 

5 Culprits, when they are tried, hold up their hands at the bar. 

6 Cheiromancy, or telling fortunes by inspection of lines in the palm of 
the hand. 

" That is, claim the benefit of clergy, or be hanged. 



CJl>*TO III.] 



261 



And that will disengage my conscience 
Of tli' obligation, in his own sense : 
I'll make him now by force abide, 
"What he by gentle means deny'd, 
To give my honour satisfaction, 
And right the brethren in the action. 
This being resolv'd, with equal speed 
And conduct, he approaeh'd his steed, 
And with activity unwont, 
Essay' d the lofty beast to mount ; 
"Which once atehiev'd, he spurr'd his palfry, 
To get from th' enemy and Ralph free ; 
Left dangers, fears, and foes behind, 
And beat, at least three lengths, the wind. 





AN HEROICAL EPISTLE 



HUDIBRAS TO SIDROPHEL, 1 




Ecce iterum Crispinus. 

*ELL, Sidrophel, tho' 'tis in vain 
To tamper with your crazy brain, 
Without trepanning of your skull, 2 
As often as the moon's at full, 
'Tis not amiss, ere ye're giv'n o'er, 5 
To try one desp'rate med'cine more ; 

For where your case can be no worse, 

The desp'rat'st is the wisest course. 

• This Epistle was not published till many years after the preceding 
canto, and does not refer to the character there described. Sidrophel in 
the poem is, most probably, William Lilly, the astrologer and almanack- 
maker. But the Sidrophel of this Epistle is said to have been Sir Paul 
N ile, a conceited virtuoso, and member of the Eoyal Society. See note on 
line 86, post. The name Sidrophel had become proverbial for ignorance 
and imposture, when the Epistle was written. 

2 A surgical operation to remove part of the skull when it presses upon 
the brain. It was said to restore the understanding, and in that sense pro- 
posed as a remedv for the disorder with wbich Dean Swift was afflicted. 



HUDIBBAS. 2G3 

Is't possible that you, whose ears 

Are of the tribe of Issaehar's, 1 10 

And might with equal reason, either 

For merit, or extent of leather, 

"With William Pryn's, 2 before they were 

Eetrench'd, and crueify'd, compare, 

Shou'd yet be deaf against a noise 15 

So roaring as the public voice ? 

That speaks your virtues free and loud, 

And openly in ev'ry crowd, 

As loud as one that sings his part 

T' a wheel-barrow, or turnip-cart, 20 

Or your new nick-nam'd old invention 

To cry green-hastings Avith an engine ; 3 

As if the vehemence had stunn'd, 

And torn your drum-heads with the sound ; 4 

And 'cause your folly's now no news, 25 

But overgrown, and out of use, 

Persuade yourself there's no such matter, 5 

But that 'tis vanish' d out of nature ; 

"When folly, as it grows in years, 

The more extravagant appears ; 30 

Por who but you could be possest 

"With so much ignorance and beast, 

That neither all men's scorn and hate, 

Nor being laugh' d aud pointed at, 

Nor bray'd so often in a mortar, 6 35 

Can teach you wholesome sense and nurture, 

1 Genesis xlix. 14: "Issachar is a strong ass, couching down between 
two burdens." 

2 See Part III. Canto II. 841, and note. 

3 In former times, and indeed until the beginning of the present century, 
the earliest peas brought to the London market came from Hastings, where 
they were grown, it may be said forced, in exhausted lime-pits. These used 
to be cried about the streets by hawkers with stentorian voice, " Green- 
hastings 0." In Butler's time these hawkers may have helped their lungs 
with a speaking pipe, in which case this passage would point at Sir Samuel 
Morland's speaking-trumpet, then recently invented. 

* Drum-heads, that is, the drum of your ears. 

5 i. e. is it possible that you should persuade yourself? 

6 That is, pounded. " Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar 
among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him." 
Prov. xxvii. 22. 



264 HUDIBBAS. [EPISTLE TO 

But, like a reprobate, what course 

Soever us'd, grow worse and worse ? 

Can no transfusion of the blood, 

That makes fools cattle, do you good ? * 40 

Nor putting pigs t' a bitch to nurse, 

To turn them into mongrel curs ; 2 

Put you into a way, at least, 

To make yuu^self a better beast ? 

Can all your critical intrigues, 45 

Of trying sound from rotten eggs; 3 

Tour sev'ral new-found remedies, 

Of curing wounds and scabs in trees ; 

Your art for fluxing them for claps, 

And purging their infected saps ; 50 

Recovering shankers, crystallines, 

And nodes and blotches in their reins, 

Have no effect to operate 

Upon that duller block, your pate ? 

But still it must be lewdly bent 55 

To tempt your own due punishment ; 

And, like your whimsy' d chariots, 4 draw 

The boys to course you without law ; 5 

1 In the last century some scientific members of the Eoyal Society made 
experiments in transfusing the blood of one animal into the veins of another ; 
and, according to their account, the operation produced beneficial effects. It 
was even performed on human subjects. Dr Mackenzie has described the 
process in his History of Health, p. 431. Sir Edmund King, a favourite of 
Charles II., was among the philosophers of his time who made this famous 
experiment. See Phil. Trans, abr. iii. 224. The lines from v. 39 to 59 
allude to various projects of the first establishers of the Royal Society. See 
Birch's History of that body, vol. i. 303, vol. ii. 48, et seq. That makes 
fools cattle, i. e. fools for admitting the blood of cattle into their veins. 

2 A curious story is told from Giraldus Cambrensis, of a sow that was 
suckled by a bitch, and acquired the sagacity of a hound or spaniel. See 
Butler's Remains, vol. i. p. 12. 

3 On the first establishment of the Royal Society, some of the members 
engaged in the investigation of these and similar subjects. The Society was 
incorporated July 15, 1662. 

4 The scheme proposed by the Society, was probably the cart to go with 
legs instead of wheels, mentioned Part III. Canto I. line 1563 ; or perhaps 
the famous sailing chariot of Stevinus, which was moved by sails, and car- 
ried twenty-eight passengers, over the sands of Scheveling, fourteen Dutch 
miles (nearly fifty-four English), in two hours. 

5 That is, to follow you close at the heels. 



SIDEOPHEL.] HTJDIBEAS. 265 

As if the art you have so long 

Profess'd of making old dogs young, 1 60 

In you had virtue to renew 

Not only youth, hut childhood too ; 

Can you, that understand all hooks, 

By judging only with your looks, 

Resolve all problems with your face, 65 

As others do with B's and A's ; 

Unriddle all that mankind knows 

"With solid bending of your brows ? 

All arts and sciences advance, 

"With screwing of your countenance, 70 

And with a penetrating eye, 

Into th' abstrusest learning pry ; 

Know more of any trade b' a hint, 

Than those that have been bred up in't, 

And yet have no art, true or false, 75 

To help your oavu bad naturals ? 

But still the more you strive t' appear, 

Are found to be the wreteheder : 

For fools are known by looking wise, 

As men find woodcocks by their eyes. 80 

Hence 'tis because ye've gained o' th' college 2 

A quarter share, at most, of knowledge, 

And brought in none, but spent repute, 

T' assume a pow'r as absolute 

To judge, and censure, and control, 85 

As if you were the sole Sir Poll, 3 

1 See Butler's Genuine Remains, vol. ii. p. 188. His want of judgment 
inclines him naturally to the most extravagant undertakings, like that of 
"making old dogs young; corking up of words in bottles," &c. 

2 Though the Royal Society removed from Gresham college on account 
of the fire of London, it returned there again 1674, being the year in which 
this Epistle was published. 

3 Nash thinks that the character of Sidrophel, in this Epistle, was de- 
signed for Sir Paul Neile, who had offended Mr Butler by saying that he 
was not the author of Hudibras. And this opinion is confirmed by Mr 
Thyer, who, in Butler's Remains, says " he can assure the reader, upon the 
poet's own authority, that the character of Sidrophel was intended for a 
picture of Sir Paul Neile, son of Richard Neile (whose father was a 
chandler in "Westminster), who, as Anthony "Wood says, went through all 

and orders in the church, school-master, curate, vicar, &c. &c, 



266 HTJDIBEAS. [EPISTLE TO 

And saucily pretend to know 

More than your dividend comes to : 

You'll find the thing will not be done 

With ignorance and face alone : 90 

No, tho' ye've purchas'd to your name, 

In history, so great a fame ; 

That now your talent's so well known, 

Eor having all belief out-grown, 

That ev'ry strange prodigious tale 95 

Is measur'd by your German scale, 1 

By which the virtuosi try 

The magnitude of ev'ry lie, 

Cast up to what it does amount, 

And place the bigg'st to your account ; 100 

That all those stories that are laid 

Too truly to you, and those made, 

Are now still charg'd upon your score, 

And lesser authors nam'd no more. 

Alas ! that faculty betrays 2 105 

Those soonest it designs to raise ; 

And all your vain renown will spoil, 

As guns o'ercharg'd the more recoil ; 

Though he that has but impudence, 

To all things has a fair pretence ; 110 

And put among his wants but shame, 

To all the world may lay his claim : 

Tho' you have tried that nothing's borne 

"With greater ease than public scorn, 

That all affronts do still give place 115 

To your impenetrable face ; 

That makes your way thro' all affairs, 

As pigs thro' hedges creep with theirs : 

Yet as 'tis counterfeit ana brass, 

You must not think 'twill always pass ; 120 

and at last was archbishop of York." Sir Paul was one of the first estab- 
lishes of the Royal Society, which, in the dawn of science, listening to many 
things that appeared trifling and incredible to the generality of the people, 
became the butt and sport of the wits of the time. 

1 All incredible stories are now measured by your standard. One Ger- 
man mile is equal to five English miles. 

2 Var. Destroys in some early editions. 



SIDROPHEL.J HUDIBEAS. 267 

For all impostors, 'when they're known, 

Are past their labour and undone : 1 

And all the best that can befall 

An artificial natural, 

Is that which madmen find, as soon 125 

As once they're broke loose from the moon, 

And proof against her influence, 

Eelapse to e'er so LLfclo sense, 

To turn stark fools, and subjects fit 

For sport of boys, and rabble-wit. 130 

1 See Butler's Character of an Impudent Man. " He that is impudent, 
is like a merchant who trades upon his credit without a stock, and if his 
debts were known, would break immediately." 






PART IE. CANTO I. 





ARGUMENT. 



The Knight and Squire resolve at once, 
The one the other to renounce ; 
They both approach the Lady's bower, 
The Squire t'inform, the Knight to woo her. 
She treats them with a masquerade, 
By furies and hobgoblins made ; 
Prom which the Squire conveys the Knight, 
And steals him, from himself, by night. 




PART III. CANTO J. 

TS true, no lover has that pow'r 
T' enforce a desperate amour, 
As he that has two strings to's bow. 
And burns for love and money too ; 
For then he's brave and resolute, 5 

Disdains to render x in his suit ; 
Has all his flames and raptures double, 
And hangs or drowns with half the trouble ; 
"While those who sillily pursue 

The simple downright way, and true, 10 

Make as unlucky applications, 
And steer against the stream their passions. 
Some forge their mistresses of stars, 
Aud when the ladies prove averse, 
And more untoward to be won 15 

Than by Caligula the moon, 2 
Cry out upon the stars for doing 
111 offices, to cross their wooing, 
"When only by themselves they're hindred, 
Tor trusting those they made her kindred, 3 20 

And still the harsher and hide-bounder 
The damsels prove, become the fonder. 
For what mad lover ever dy'd 
To gain a soft and gentle bride ? 

1 That is, surrender, or give up : from the French rendre. 

2 This was one of the extravagant follies of Caligula. He assumed to 
be a god and boasted of embracing the moon. See Suetonius, Life of Calig- 
ula (Bonn's edit. p. 266). 

3 The meaning is, that when men have flattered their mistresses extrava- 
gantly, and declared them to be more than human, they must not be sur- 
prised or complain, if they are treated in return with that distant reserve 
which superior beings may rightly exercise towards inferior creatures. 



270 HUDIBEAS. [PAET III. 

Or for a lady tender-hearted, 25 

In purling streams or hemp departed ? 
Leap't headlong int' Elysium, 
Thro' th' windows of a dazzling room ? ' 
But for some cross ill-natur'd dame, 
The am'rous fly burnt in his flame. 30 

This to the Knight could be no news, 
With all mankind so much in use ; 
"Who therefore took the wiser course, 
To make the most of his amours, 
Besolv'd to try all sorts of ways, 35 

As follows in due time and place. 
No sooner was the bloody fight 
Between the wizard and the Knight, 
With all th' appurtenances, over, 
But he relaps'd again t' a lover ; 40 

As he was always wont to do, 
When he'ad discomfited a foe, 
And us'd the only antique philters, 
Deriv'd from old heroic tilters. 2 

But now triumphant and victorious, 45 

He held th' atchievement was too glorious 
For such a conqueror to meddle 
With petty constable or beadle ; 
Or fly for refuge to the hostess 

Of th inns of court and chanc'ry, Justice ; 60 

Who might, perhaps, reduce his cause 
To th' ordeal trial of the laws ; 3 

1 Drowned themselves. Objects reflected by water appear nearly the 
same as when they are viewed through the windows of a room so high from 
the ground that it dazzles to look down from it. Thus Juvenal, Sat. vi. v. 
31, Altse caligantesque fenestra: which Holyday translates, dazzling high 
windows. 

3 The heroes of romance endeavoured to conciliate the affections of cheir 
mistresses by the fame of their illustrious exploits. So was Desdemona 
won. Othello, Act i., 

" She lov'd me for the dangers I had past." 

3 Ordeal comes from the Anglo-Saxon ordal, and signifies judgment. 
The methods of trial by fire,- water, or combat, were in use till the time of 
Henry III., and the right of exercising them was annexed to several lord- 
ships or manors. At this day, when a culprit is arraigned at the bar, and 
asked how he will be tried, he is directed to answer, " by God and my 



CA>'TO I.] HUDIBEAS. 271 

Where none escape, but such as branded 

"With red-hot irons, have past bare-handed ; 

And if they cannot read one verse 55 

I' th' Psalms, must sing it, and that's worse. 1 

He, therefore, judging it below him, 

To tempt a shame the dev'l might owe him, 

Resolv'd to leave the Squire for bail 

And mainprize for him, to the jail, 60 

To answer with his vessel, 2 all 

That might disastrously befall. 

He thought it now the fittest juncture 

To give the Lady a rencounter ; 

T' acquaint her with his expedition, 65 

And conquest o'er the fierce magician ; 

Describe the manner of the fray, 

And show the spoils he brought away ; 

His bloody scourging aggravate, 

The number of the blows and Aveight : 70 

All which might probably succeed, 

And gain belief he 'ad done the deed: 

Which he resolv'd t' enforce, and spare 

No pawning of his soul to swear ; 

But, rather than produce his back, 75 

To set his conscience on the rack ; 

And in pursuance of his urging 

Of articles perform'd, and scourging, 

And all things else, upon his part, 

Demand delivery of her heart, 80 

country," by the verdict or solemn opinion of a jury. "By God" only, 
would formerly have meant the ordeal, which referred the case immediately 
to the divine judgment. 

1 In former times, when scholarship was rare and almost confined to 
priests, a person who was tried for any capital crime, except treason or 
sacrilege, might obtain an acquittal by praying his clergy ; the meaning (if 
which was to call for a Latin Bible, and read a passage in it, generally se- 
lected from the Psalms. If he exhibited this capacity, the ordinary certified 
quod legit, and he was saved as a person of learning, who might be use- 
ful to the state ; otherwise he was hanged. Hence the saying among the 
people, that if they could not read their neck-verse at sessions, they must 
sing it at the gallows, it being customary to give out a psalm to be sung 
preliminary to the execution. 

2 In the use of this term the saints unwittingly concurred with the oh! 
philosophers, who also called the body a vessel. 



272 HUDIBEAS. [PAET III. 

Her goods and chattels, and good graces, 

And person, up to his embraces. 

Thought he, the ancient errant knights 

"Won all their ladies' hearts in fights, 

And cut whole giants into fitters, 1 85 

To put them into am'rous twitters ; 

Whose stubborn bowels scorn'd to yield, 

Until their gallants were half kill' d ; 

But when their bones were drubb'd so sore, 

They durst not woo one combat more, 90 

The ladies' hearts began to melt, 

Subdu'd by blows their lovers felt. 

So Spanish heroes, with their lances, 

At once wound bulls and ladies' fancies ; 2 

And he acquires the noblest spouse 95 

That widows greatest herds of cows ; 

Then what may I expect to do, 

Who 've quell' d so vast a buffalo ? 

Meanwhile the Squire was on his way, 
The Knight's late orders to obey ; 100 

Who sent him for a strong detachment 
Of beadles, constables, and watchmen, 
T' attack the cunning-man, for plunder 
Committed falsely on his lumber ; 
When he, who had so lately sack'd 105 

The enemy, had -done the fact, 
Had rifled all his pokes and fobs 3 
Of gimcracks, whims, and jiggumbobs, 4 
Which he by hook or crook had gather'd, 
And for his own inventions father'd : 110 

And when they should, at jail-delivery, 
Unriddle one another's thievery, 

1 Some editions read fritters ; but the corrected one of 1678 has fitters, 
a phrase often used by romance writers, very frequently by the author of 
the Eomaunt of Romaunts. Fitters signifies small fragments, from fetta, 
Ital., fetzen, Germ. 

2 The bull-fights at Madrid have been frequently described. The ladies 
have always taken a zealous part at these combats. 

3 That is, large and small pockets. Poke from poche, a large pocket, 
bag, or sack. So " a pig in a poke." 

4 Knick-knacks, or trinkets. See "Wright's Glossary. 



CA>*TO I.] HUDTBEAS. 273 

Both might have evidence enough 

To render neither halter-proof. 1 

He thought it desperate to tarry, 115 

And venture to be accessary ; 

But rather -wisely slip his fetters, 

And leave them for the Knight, his betters. 

He caJl'd to mind th' unjust foul play 

He would have offer'd him that day, 120 

To make him curry his own hide, 

Which no beast ever did beside, 

"Without all possible evasion, 

But of the riding dispensation : 2 

And therefore much about the hour 125 

The Knight, for reasons told before, 

Besolv'd to leave him to the fury 

Of justice, and an unpack'd jury, 

The Squire concurr'd t' abandon him, 

And serve him in the self-same trim ; 3 130 

T' acquaint the lady what he'd done, 

And what he meant to carry on ; 

What project 't was he went about 

When Sidrophel and he fell out ; 

1 The mutual accusations of the Knight and Sidrophel, if established, 
might hang both of them. Halter-proof is to be in no danger from. a 
halter, as musket-proof is to be in no danger from a musket : to render neither 
halter-proof is to leave both in danger of being hanged. 

8 Ealpho considers that he should not have escaped the whipping in- 
tended for him by the Knight, if their dispute had not been interrupted by 
the riding-show, or skimmington. 

3 The author has long had an eye to the selfishness and treachery of the 
leading parties, the Presbyterians and Independents. A few lines below he 
speaks more plainly : 

In which both dealt, as if they meant 
Their party saints to represent, 
"Who never fail'd, upon their sharing 
In any prosperous arms-bearing, 
To lay themselves out to supplant 
Each other cousin-german saint. 

The reader will remember that Hudibras represents the Presbyterians, 
and Ealpho the the Independents : this scene therefore alludes to the man- 
ner in which the latter supplanted the former in the civil war. 

T 



274 HUDIBEAS. [PAET III. 

His firm and stedfast resolution, 135 

To swear her to an execution ; l 

To pawn his inward ears to marry her, 2 

And bribe the devil himself to carry her. 

In which both dealt, as if they meant 

Their party saints to represent, 140 

Who never fail'd, upon their sharing 

In any prosperous arms-bearing, 

To lay themselves out to supplant 

Each other cousin-german saint. 

But ere the Knight could do his part, 145 

The Squire had got so much the start, 

He'd to the lady done his errand, 

And told her all his tricks aforehand. 

Just as he finish' d his report, 
The Knight alighted in the court, 150 

And having ty'd his beast t' a pale, 
And taken time for both to stale, 
He put his band and beard in order, 
The sprucer to accost and board her: 3 
And now began t' approach the door, 155 

"When she, who 'ad spy'd him out before, 
Convey'd th' informer out of sight, 
And went to entertain the Knight : 
With whom encountering, after longees 4 
Of humble and submissive congees, 160 

And all due ceremonies paid, 
He strok'd his beard, and thus he said : 5 

1 To swear he had undergone the stipulated whipping, and then demand 
the performance of her part of the bargain. 

2 His honour and conscience, which might forfeit some of their immuni- 
ties by perjury, as the outward ears do for the same crime in the sentence 
of the statute law. 

3 Thus in Hamlet, Act ii. sc. 2 : 

I'll board him presently. — 0, give me leave. — 
How does my good lord Hamlet ? 
See also Twelfth Night, Act i. sc. 3 ; and Taming of the Shrew, Act i 
sc. 2. 

* Longees are thrusts made by fencers. 

5 " And now, being come within compass of discerning her, he began to 
frame the loveliest countenance that he coidd ; stroking up his legs, setting 



CA>"TO I.] HUDIBRAS. 275 

Madam, I do, as is rny duty, 
Honour the shadow of your shoe-tie j 1 
And now am eouie, to bring your ear 165 

A present you'll be glad to hear ; 
At least I hope so : the thing's done, 
Or may I never see the sun ; 
For which I humbly now demand 
Performance at your gentle hand ; 1 70 

And that you'd please to do your part, 
As I have done mine to my smart. 

"With that he shrugg'd his sturdy back, 
As if he felt his shoulders ake : 

But she, who well enough knew what, ' 175 

Before he spoke, he would be at, 
Pretended not to apprehend 
The mystery of what he meau'd, 
And therefore wish'd him to expound 
His dark expressions less profound. 180 

Madam, quoth he, I come to prove 
How much I've suffer' d for your love, 
Which, like your votary, to win, 
I have not spar'd my tatter' d skin ; 2 
And, for those meritorious lashes, 185 

To claim your favour and good graces. 

Quoth she, I do remember once 3 
I freed you from th' enchanted sconce ; 4 
And that you promis'd, for that favour, 
To bind your back to 'ts good behaviour, 5 190 

up his beard in due order, and standing bolt upright." Sir Philip Sidney's 
Arcadia, lib. iii. p. 349. See also Troilus and Cressida, Act i. ; Cleveland's 
Mixt Assembly, p. 43; Don Quixote, Part i. book iii. chap. 12. 

1 This rhyme is used before by Crashaw, in his Delights of the Muses, 
published in 1646 : 

I wish her beauty, 
That owes not all its duty 
To gaudy tire, or glistering shoe-ty. 

7 Roman Catholics used to scourge themselves before the image of a 
favourite saint. 

3 The lady here with amusing affectation speaks as if the event had 
happened some time before, though in reality it was only the preceding day. 

4 From the stocks. 

5 Var. To th' good behaviour. 

t 2 



276 HTTDTBEAS. [PA.BT til. 

And for my sake and service, vow'd 

To lay upon 't a heavy load, 

And what 't woidd bear to a scruple prove, 

As other knights do oft make love. 

Which, whether you have done or no, 195 

Concerns yourself, not me, to know ; 

But if you have, I shall confess, 

Y' are honester than I could guess. 

Quoth he, If you suspect my troth, 
I cannot prove it hut by oath ; 200 

And, if you make a question on 't, 
I'll pawn my soul that I have done 't : 
And he that makes his soul his surety, 
I think does give the best secur'ty. 

Quoth she, Some say the soul's secure 205 

Against distress and forfeiture ; 
Is free from action, and exempt 
From execution and contempt ; 
And to be summon' d to appear 

In the other world 's illegal here, 1 210 

And therefore few make any account, 
Int' what incumbrances they run't : 
For most men carry things so even 
Between this world, and hell, and heaven, 2 
Without the least offence to either, 215 

They freely deal in all together, 
And equally abhor to quit 
This world for both, or both for it. 
And when they pawn and damn their souls, 
They are but pris'ners on paroles. 220 

For that, quoth he, 'tis rational, 
They' may be accountable in all : 

1 Alluding to the famous story of Peter and John de Carvajal, who, 
being unjustly condemned for murder, and taken for execution, summoned 
the king, Ferdinand the Fourth of Spain, to appear before God's tribunal 
in thirty days. The king laughed at the summons, but it nevertheless 
disquieted him, and though he remained apparently in good health on the 
day before, he was found dead in his bed on the morning of the thirtieth 
day. Mariana says there can be no doubt of the truth of this story. 

2 Meaning the combination of saintship, or being righteous over-much, 
with selfishness and knavery. 



CANTO 1.1 HUDIBEAS. 277 

For when there is that intercourse 

Between divine and human pow'rs, 

That all that we determine here 225 

Commands obedience everywhere; 1 

When penalties may be commuted 2 

For fines, or ears, aud executed, 

It follows, nothing binds so fast 

As souls in pawn and mortgage past : 230 

For oaths are th' only tests and scales 3 

Of right and wrong, and true and false ; 

And there's no other way to try 

The doubts of law and justice by. 

Quoth she, What is it you would swear P 235 

There's no believing 'till I hear : 
For, 'till they're understood, all tales, 
Like nonsense, are not true nor false. 

Quoth he, When I resolv'd t'obey 
What you commanded th' other day, 240 

And to perform my exercise, 
As schools are wont, for your fair eyes ; 
T' avoid all scruples in the case, 
I went to do't upon the place ; 

But as the castle is enchanted 245 

By Sidrophel the witch, and haunted 
With evil spirits, as you know, 
Who took my Squire and me for two, 4 
Before I'd hardly time to lay 

My weapons by, and disarray, 250 

I heard a formidable noise, 
Loud as the Stentrophonic voice, 5 
That roar'dfar oif, Dispatch and strip, 
I'm ready with th' infernal whip, 
That shall divest thy ribs of skin, 255 

To expiate thy ling' ring sin ; 

1 The reference is to the text : — " Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, 
shall be bound in heaven." Matthew xviii. 13. 

2 The Knight argues that, since temporal punishments may be mitigated 
and commuted, the best securities for truth and honesty are such oaths as 
his. 3 Var. Seals in edition of 1678. 

4 For two evil and delinquent spirits. 

5 Sir Samuel Morland's speaking trumpet was so called after Homer's 
far-famed brazen-tongued Stentor. See Iliad, v. 785. 



278 HTJDIBEAS. [PABT III. 

Thou'st broke perfidiously thy oath, 

And not perform' d thy plighted troth, 

But spar'd thy renegado back, 

"Where thou'dst so great a prize at stake, 1 260 

Which now the fates have order' d me 

For penance and revenge, to flea, 

Unless thou presently make haste ; 

Time is, time was ! 2 — and there it ceast. 

With which, tho' startled, I confess, 265 

Yet th' horror of the thing was less 

Than the other dismal apprehension 

Of interruption or prevention ; 

A_nd therefore, snatching up the rod, 

I laid upon my back a load, 270 

Besolv'd to spare no flesh and blood, 

To make my word and honour good ; 

Till tir'd, and taking truce at length, 

For new recruits of breath and strength, 

I felt the blows still ply'd as fast, 275 

As if they'd been by lovers plac'd, 

In raptures of Platonic lashing, 

And chaste contemplative bar dashing. 3 

When facing hastily about, 

To stand upon my guard and scout, 4 280 

I found th' infernal cunning man, 

And the under-witch, his Caliban, 

With scourges, like the furies, arm'd, 

That on my outward quarters storm' d. 

In haste I snatch' d my weapon up, 285 

And gave their hellish rage a stop ; 

Call'd thrice upon your name, 5 and fell 

Courageously on Sidrophel : 



1 The later editions read, when thou'dst. 

2 This was the famous saying of Roger Bacon's brazen head. 

3 The epithets chaste and contemplative are used ironically. Bulwer, in 
his Artificial Changeling, p. 209, says, " the Turks call those that are 
young, and have no beards, bardasses," that is, sodomitical boys. 

4 Sir Samuel Luke, it will be remembered, was scout-master. See p. 4, 
note 2 . 

5 In the romances of knight-errantry the heroes always invoke their 
mistresses upon such occasions. 



CAKTO I.] HUDIBBA3. 279 

Who now transform' d himself t' a bear 
Began to roar aloud, and tear ; 290 

When I as furiously press' d on, 1 
My weapon down his throat to run, 
Laid hold on him ; hut he broke loose, 
And turn'd himself into a goose, 

Div'd under water, in a pond, 295 

To hide himself from being found ; 
In vain I sought him ; but as soon 
As I perceiv'd him fled and gone, 
Prepar'd, with equal haste and rage, 
His under-sorc'rer to engage ; 300 

But bravely scorning to defile 
My sword with feeble blood, and vile, 
I judg'd it better from a quick- 
Set hedge to cut a knotted stick, 

With which I furiously laid on ; 3C5 

Till, in a harsh and doleful tone, 
It roar'd, hold, for pity, Sir, 
I am too great a sufferer, 2 
Abus'd as you have been b'a witch, 
But conjur'd int' a worse caprich, 3 310 

Who sends me out on many a jaunt, 
Old houses in the night to haunt, 
Tor opportunities t' improve 
Designs of thievery or love ; 

With drugs convey 'd in drink or meat, 315 

All feats of witches counterfeit ; 
Kill pigs and geese with powder' d glass, 
And make it for enchantment pass ; 
With cow-itch 4 meazle like a leper, 
And choke with fumes of guinea pepper ; 320 

Make lechers, and their punks, with dewtry, 5 
Commit fantastical advowtry ; 

1 Some editions read : When I furiously — 

2 O, for pity, is a favourite expression, frequently used by Spenser. 

3 That is, whim, fancy, from the Italian capriccio. 

4 Cowage, or Cow-itch (Mucuna pruriens), a plant introduced from the 
East Indies in 1680, the pod of which is covered with short hairs, which, 
if applied to the skin, cause great itching. It is still sometimes used by 
country lads and lasses in various ways, to tease each other with. 

5 Dewtry is the old English name for Datura, a plant belonging to the 






280 HTJDIBRAS. [PAET III. 

Bewitch hermetic men to run * 

Stark staring mad with manicon ; 

Believe mechanic virtuosi 325 

Can raise 'em mountains in Potosi ; 2 

And sillier than the antic fools, 

Take treasure for a heap of coals ; 3 

Seek out for plants with signatures, 

To quack of universal cures ; 4 330 

"With figures, ground on panes of glass, 

Make people on their heads to pass ; 5 

Natural Order of Night-shades, all of which are extremely narcotic, and by 
some old writer said to be intoxicating and aphrodisiac. Stramonium is 
the English species. One of the inquiries of the time, instigated by the 
Royal Society, was as to the properties of Datura. See Sprat's History of 
the Royal Society, p. 161, et seq. Advowtry signifies adultery, and is so 
used by Bacon, in his Life of Henry VII. 

1 Alchymists were called hermetic philosophers. Manicon (or strychnon) 
is another narcotic, and is so called from its power of causing madness. 
Authors differ as to its modern name, some supposing it to be the Physalis, 
or winter-cherry, others the black night-shade. See Pliny's Natural Hist. 
(Bohn's edit.) vol. v. p. 241, 266. Banquo, in Shakspeare's Macbeth, 
seems to allude to it when he says : 

"Were such things here, as we do speak about ? 

Or have we eaten of the insane root, 

That takes the reason prisoner ? Act i. 

2 A banter on the pretended Discoverers of the Philosopher's Stone, one of 
whom', Van Helmont, asserted in his book, that he had made nearly eight 
ounces of gold by projecting a grain of his powder upon eight ounces of 
quicksilver. 

3 The alchymists pretended to be able to transmute the baser metals into 
gold. Antic means antique or ancient, perhaps qiiizzing the Royal Society ; 
or Butler might mean those dreamers among the ancients, who gave occasion 
to the proverb, " pro thesauro carbones ; " they dreamed of gold, but on 
examination found coals ; it is frequently applied by Lucian and Phaedrus. 
It must be borne in mind, however, that Carbon is the constituent part of 
diamonds and gold as well as of coal. 

4 The signatures of plants were marks or figures upon them, which were 
thought to point out their medicinal qualties. Thus Wood-sorrel was used 
as a cordial, because its leaf is shaped like a heart. Liverwort was given 
for disorders of the liver. The herb Dragon was employed to counteract the 
effects of poison, because its stem is speckled like some serpents. The yel- 
low juice of the Celandine recommended it for the cure of the jaundice, 
and Paracelsus said, that the spots on the leaves of the Persicaria maculosa 
proved its efficacy in the scurvy. 

5 The multiplying glass, concave mirror, camera obscura, and other in- 
ventions, which were new in our author's time, passed with the vulgar for 
enchantments : and as the law against witches was then in force, the ex- 



CANTO I.] HUDIBBAS. 2S1 

And mighty heaps of coin increase, 

.Reflected from a single piece ; 

To draw in fools, whose nat'ral itches 335 

Incline perpetually to witches, 

And keep me in continual fears, 

And danger of my neck and ears ; 

When less delinquents have been scourg'd, 

And hemp on wooden anvils forg'd, 1 340 

"Which others for cravats have worn 

About their necks, and took a turn. 

I pitied the sad punishment 
The wretched caitiff underwent, 

And held my drubbing of his bones 345 

Too great an honour for poltroons ; 
For knights are bound to feel no blows 
From paltry and unequal foes, 2 
Who, when they slash and cut to pieces, 
Do all with civillest addresses : 350 

Their horses never give a blow, 
But when they make a leg and bow. 
I therefore spar'd his flesh, and prest him 
About the witch, with many a question. 

Quoth he, For many years he drove 356 

A kind of broking-trade in love, 3 
Employ' d in all th' intrigues, and trust, 
Of feeble, speculative lust; 
Procurer to th' extravagancy, 

And crafcy ribaldry of fancy, 360 

By those the devil had forsook, 
As things below him, to provoke ; 
But b'ing a virtuoso, able 
To smatter, quack, and cant, and dabble, 
He held his talent most adroit, 365 

For any mystical exploit, 

hibitors of these curiosities were in some danger of being sentenced to 
Bridewell, the pillory, or the halter. 

1 Alluding to the occupation of minor criminals in Bridewell, who beat 
the hemp with which greater criminals were hanged. 

2 According to the rules of knight-errantry. See Don Quixote (book iii 
ch. 1), and romances in general. 

3 Meaning that he was a pimp, or pander. 



282 HUDIBEAS. [PAET III. 

As others of his tribe had done, 

And rais'd their prices three to one * 

For one predicting pimp has th' odds 

Of chaldrons of plain downright bawds. 370 

But as an elf, the dev'l's valet, 

Is not so slight a thing to get, 1 

For those that do his bus'ness best, 

In hell are us'd the ruggedest ; 

Before so meriting a person 375 

Cou'd get a grant, but in reversion, 

He serv'd two 'prenticeships, and longer, 

I' th' myst'ry of a lady-monger. 

For, as some write, a witch's ghost, 

As soon as from the body loos'd, 380 

Becomes a puisne-imp itself, 

And is another witch's elf ; 

He, after searching far and near, 

At length found one in Lancashire, 

"With whom he bargain'd beforehand, 385 

And, after hanging, entertain' d: 

Since which he's play'd a thousand feats, 

And practis'd all mechanic cheats : 

Transform'cl himself to th' ugly shapes 

Of wolves and bears, baboons and apes ; 390 

"Which he has varied more than witches, 

Or Pharaoh's wizards could their switches ; 

And all with whom he's had to do, 

Turn'd to as monstrous figures too ; 

"Witness myself, whom he's abus'd, 395 

And to this beastly shape reduc'd; 

By feeding me on beans and peas, 

He crams in nasty crevices, 

And turns to comfits by his arts, 

To make me relish for desserts, 400 

And one by one, with shame and fear, 

Lick up the candied provender. 



1 William Lilly says he was fourteen years before he could get an elf or 
ghost of a departed witch, but at last found one in Lancashire. This 
country has always been famous for witches, but the ladies there are now so 
called out of compliment to their witchery or beauty. 



CA5TT0 I.] HTTDTBRAS. 283 

Beside — But as h' was running on, 

To tell what other feats he'd done, 

The lady stopt his full career, 405 

And told him, now 'twas time to hear. 

If half those things, said she, be true — 

They're all, quoth he, I swear by you. 

Why then, said she, that Sidrophel 

Has damn'd himself to th' pit of hell, 410 

"Who, mounted on a broom, the nag ' 

And hackney of a Lapland hag, 

In quest of you came hither post, 

Within an hour, I'm sure, at most, 

"Who told me. all you swear and say, 415 

Quite contrary, another way ; 

Vow'd that you came to him, to know 

If you should carry me or no ; 

And would have hir'd him and his imps, 

To be your match-makers and pimps, 420 

T' engage the devil on your side, 

And steal, like Proserpine, your bride ; 

But he, disdaining to embrace 

So filthy a design, and base, 

Tou fell to vapouring and huffing, 425 

And drew upon him like a ruffian; 

Surpris'd him meanly, unprepar'd, 

Before he 'ad time to mount his guard, 

And left him dead upon the ground, 

"With many a bruise and desperate wound ; 430 

Swore you had broke and robb'd his house, 

And stole his talismanique louse, 2 

And all his new-found old inventions, 

"With flat felonious intentions, 

"Which he could bring out, where he had, 435 

And what he bought 'em for, and paid ; 

1 Lapland is head-quarters for witchcraft, and it is from these Scandi- 
navians that we derive the accepted tradition that witches ride through tht 
air on broom-sticks. See Scheffer's History of Lapland, Mallet's Northern 
Antiquities, and Keightley's Fairy Mythology. 

2 The poet intimates that Sidrophel, being much plagued with lice, had 
made a talisman, or formed a louse in a certain position of the stars, to 
chase away this kind of vermin. 



284 HTJDIBEAS. [PART III. 

His flea, his morpion, and punese, 1 

He 'ad gotten for his proper ease, 

And all in perfect minutes made, 

By th' ahlest artists of the trade ; 440 

Which, he could prove it, since he lost, 

He has been eaten up almost, 

And altogether, might amount 

To many hundreds on account ; 

For which he 'ad got sufficient warrant 445 

To seize the malefactors errant, 

Without capacity of bail, 

But of a cart's or horse's tail ; 

And did not doubt to bring the wretches 

To serve for pendulums to watches, 450 

Which, modern virtuosi say, 

Incline to hanging every way. 2 

Beside, he swore, and swore 'twas true, 

That ere he went in quest of you, 

He set a figure to discover 455 

If you were fled to Bye or Dover ; 

And found it clear, that to betray 

Yourself and me, you fled this way ; 

And that he was upon pursuit, 

To take you somewhere hereabout. 460 

He vow'd he'd had intelligence 

Of all that pass'd before and since ; 

xlnd found, that ere you came to him, 

T' had been engaging life and limb 

About a case of tender conscience, 465 

Where both abounded in your own sense ; 

Till Balpho, by his Light and Grace, 

Had clear' d all scruples in the case, 

And prov'd that you might swear, and own 

Whatever' s by the Wicked done : 470 

For which, most basely to requite 

The service of his Gifts and Light, 



1 The talisman of a flea, a louse, and a bug. Morpion and Punaise are 
French terms. 

2 Meaning the balance for watches, which may be called a substitute for 
the pendulum, and was invented about our author's time by Dr Hooke. 



CANTO I.] HUDIBEAS. 2S5 

You strove t' oblige him, by main force, 

To scourge bis ribs instead of yours ; 

But that be stood upon bis guard, 175 

And all your vapouring outdar'd ; 

For which, between you both, the- feat 

Has never been perform' d as yet. 

While thus the lady talk'd, the Knight 
Turn'd th' outside of his eyes to white ; 480 

As men of Inward Light are wont 
To turn their optics in upon 't ; l 
He wonder'd how she came to know 
"What he had done, and meant to do ; 
Held up his affidavit hand, 2 485 

As if he 'd been to be arraign'd ; 
Cast tow'rds the door a ghastly look, 
In dread of Sidrophel, and spoke : 

Madam, if but one word be true 
Of all the wizard has told you, 490 

Or but one single circumstance 
In all th' apocryphal romance ; 
May dreadful earthquakes swallow down 
This vessel, that is all your own ; 3 
Or may the heavens fall, and cover 495 

These relics of your constant lover. 4 

Tou have provided Avell, quoth she, 
I thank you, for yourself and me, 

1 The "Dissenters are ridiculed for an affected sanctity, and turning up the 
whites of their eyes, which Echard calls " showing the heavenly part of the 
eye." Thus Ben Jonson in his story of Cocklossel and the Devil, 

To help it he called for a puritan poacht 

That used to turn up the eggs of his eyes. 
And Fenton (in his Epistle to Southerne) : 

Her eyes she disciplin'd percisely right, 

Both when to wink, and how to turn the white. 
See also Tale of a Tuh, p. 207. 

2 When any one takes an oath, he puts his right hand to the book, that 
is, to the New Testament, and kisses it ; but the Covenanters, in swearing, 
refused to kiss the book, saying it was Popish and superstitious ; and sub- 
stituted the ceremony of holding up the right hand, which they used also 
in taking any oath before the magistrate. 

3 This is an equivocation ; the "vessel" is evidently not the abject suitor, 
but the lady herself. 

4 The Knight still means the widow, but speaks as if he meant himself. 



286 HUDIBBAS. [PART III. 

And shown your Presbyterian wits 

Jump punctual l with the Jesuits' ; 500 

A most compendious way, and civil, 

At once to cheat the world, the devil, 

With heaven and hell, yourselves, and those 

On whom you vainly think t' impose. 

Why then, quoth he, may hell surprise — 505 

That trick, said she, will not pass twice : 
I've learn'd how far I'm to believe 
Tour pinning oaths upon your sleeve ; 
But there's a better way of clearing 
What you would prove, than downright swearing : 510 
For if you have perform'd the feat, 
The blows are visible as yet, 
Enough to serve for satisfaction 
Of nicest scruples in the action ; 
And if you can produce those knobs, 515 

Altho' they're but the witch's drubs, 
I'll pass them all upon account, 
As if your nat'ral self had done 't ; 
Provided that they pass th' opinion 
Of able juries of old women, 520 

Who, us'd to judge all matter of facts 
Por belhes, 2 may do so for backs. 

Madam, quoth he, your love's a million, 
To do is less than to be wilHng, 
As I am, were it in my power, 525 

T' obey what you command, and more ; 
But for performing what you bid, 
I thank you as much as if I did. 
Tou know I ought to have a care 
To keep my wounds from taking air ; 530 

Por wounds in those that are all heart, 
Are dangerous in any part. 

I find, quoth she, my goods and chattels 
Are like to prove but mere drawn battles ; 

1 "Jump punctual" means to agree exactly. "Tou will find" (says 
Petyt, in his Visions of the Keformation) " that though they have two 
faces that loot different ways, yet they have both the same lineaments, the 
same principles, and the same practices." 

a When a woman pretends to he pregnant, in order to gain a respite from 
her sentence, the fact must be ascertained by a jury of matrons. 



CAUtO I.] HUDIBEAS. 2S7 

For still the longer we contend, 535 

We are but farther off the end. 
But granting now we should agree, 
"What is it you expect from me ? 

Tour plighted faith, quoth he, and word 
You pass'd in heaven, on record, 540 

Where all contracts to have and t' hold, 
Are everlastingly enroll' d : 
And if 'tis counted treason here ' 
To raze records, 'tis much more there. 

Quoth she, There are no bargains driv'n, 545 

Nor marriages clapp'd up in heav'n ; 2 
And that's the reason, as some guess, 
There is no heav'n in marriages ; 
Two things that naturally press 3 
Too narrowly, to be at ease : 55C 

Their bus'ness there is only love, 
Which marriage is not like t' improve ; 4 
Love, that's too generous t' abide 
To be against its nature tied ; 

For where 'tis of itself inclin'd, 555 

It breaks loose when it is confin'd, 5 
And like the soul, its harbourer, 
Debarr'd the freedom of the air, 
Disdains against its will to stay, 

But struggles out, and flies away : 560 

And therefore never can comply, 
T' endure the matrimonial tie, 

1 It was made felony by Act 8 Eic. II., and 8 Hen. VI., cap. 12. 

2 Mark xii. 25 : "For when they shall arise from the dead, they neither 
marry nor are given in marriage." 

3 That is, bargains and marriages. 

4 Plurimus in coelis amor est, connubia nulla : 

Conjugia in terris plurima, nullus amor. 

J. Owen, Epigram, lib. 2. 

5 Thus thought Eloise, according to Pope : 

Love, free as air, at sight of human ties, 
Spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies. 
So Chaucer, in his Frankeleynes Tale : 

Love wol not be constrained by maistrie : 
"Whan maistre cometh, the god of love anon 
Beteth his winges, and, farewel, he is gon. 



288 HUDIBRAS. ,[PABT IIT. 

That binds the female and the male, 

"Where th' one is but the other's bail ; 

Like Roman gaolers, when they slept, 565 

Chain'd to the prisoners they kept : 2 

Of which the true and faithfull'st lover 

Grives best security to suffer. 

Marriage is but a beast, some say, 3 

That carries double in foul way, 570 

And therefore 'tis not to b' admir'd, 

It should so suddenly be tir'd ; 

A bargain, at a venture made, 

Between two partners in a trade : 

For what's inferr'd by t' have and t' hold, 575 

But something pass'd away and sold? 4 

That, as it makes but one of two, 

Reduces all things else as low ; 

And at the best is but a mart 

Between the one and th' other part, 580 

That on the marriage day is paid, 

Or hour of death, the bet it laid ; 5 

And all the rest of bett'r or worse, 

Both are but losers out of purse : 

For when upon their ungot heirs 585 

Th' entail themselves and all that's theirs, 

What blinder bargain e'er was driven, 

Or wager laid at sis and seven ? 

To pass themselves away, and turn 

Their children's tenants ere they're born ? 590 

Beg one another idiot 

To guardians, ere they are begot ; 

1 That is, where if one of them is faulty, the other is drawn into diffi- 
culties by it, and the truest lover is likely to be the greatest sufferer. 

2 The custom among the Eomans was to chain the right hand of the 
culprit to the left hand of the guard. 

3 Sir Thomas Brown says that he could be content that we might pro- 
create like trees without conjunction. 

4 An equivocation. The words "to have and to hold," in the marriage 
ceremony, signify " I take to possess and keep;" in deeds of conveyance 
their meaning is, "I give to be possessed and kept by another." The Salis- 
bury Missal (see edition 1554) reads, "I take thee for my wedded wife to 
have and to hold for this day." 

5 Some editions read, the bet is laid. 



CA>~TO I.] HIJDIBEAS. 2S9 

Or ever shall, perhaps, by th' one 

"Who's bound to vouch 'em for his own, 

Tho' got b' implicit generation, 1 > 695 

And general club of all the nation ; 

For which she's fortified no less 

Than all the island with four seas : 2 

Exacts the tribute of her dower, 

In ready insolence and power, 600 

And makes him pass away, to have 

And hold to her, himself, her slave, 

More wretched than an ancient villain, 3 

Condemn' d to drudgery and tilling ; 

"While all he does upon the by, 605 

She is not bound to justify, 

Kor at her proper cost and charge 

Maintain the feats he does at large. 4 

Such hideous sots were those obedient 

Old vassals to their ladies regent, 610 

To give the cheats the eldest hand 

In foul play, by the laws o' th' land, 

For which so many a legal cuckold 5 

Has been run down in courts, and truckled : 

A law that most unjustly yokes 615 

All Johns of Stilej to Joans of Nokes, 6 

1 This would seem to mean generation on faith ; hut Dr Johnson says, 
implicit signifies mist, complicated, intricate, perplexed. Grey illustrates 
the reference by the story of a woman who alleged that she was enceinte by 
her husband, though he had been three years absent from her, upon the plea 
that she had received very comfortable letters from him. 

2 The interpretation of the law was, that a child could not he deemed a 
bastard, if the husband had remained in the island, or within the four seas. 
See Butler's Remains, vol. i. p. 122. 

3 The villains were a sort of serfs or slaves, bound to the land, and passed 
with it to any purchaser : as the lord was not answerable for anything done by 
his villain tenant, no more is the wife for anything done by her villain hus- 
band, though he is bound to justify and maintain all that his wife does. 

4 Meaning that the husband is bound under all circumstances to main- 
tain the credit of his wife, a condition as degrading as that of villainage, by 
which the tenants were bound to render the most abject services to their 
lords ; while the wife, on the other hand, is in no respect responsible for 
her husband. 

5 A legal cuckold is one who has proved his title by an action for 
damages. 

c These are names given in law proceedings to indefinite persons, like 



290 HUDIBEAS. [PAET III 

Without distinction of degree, 

Condition, age, or quality ; 

Admits no pow'r of revocation, 

Nor valuable consideration, 62C 

Nor writ of error, nor reverse 

Of judgment past, for better or worse ; 

Will not allow tbe privileges 

That beggars challenge under hedges, 

Who, when they're griev'd, can make dead horses 625 

Their spiritual judges of divorces ; l 

While nothing else but rem in re, 

Can set the proudest wretches free ; 

A slavery beyond enduring, 

But that 'tis of their own procuring. 630 

As spiders never seek the fly, 

But leave him, of himself, t' apply ; 

So men are by themselves betray' d, 

To quit the freedom they enjoy'd, 

And run their necks into a noose, 635 

They'd break 'em after to break loose. 

As some, whom death would not depart, 2 

Have done the feat themselves by art. 

Like Indian widows, gone to bed 

In flaming curtains to the dead; 3 640 

And men has often dangled for 't, 

And yet will never leave the sport. 

Nor do the ladies want excuse 

Bor all the stratagems they use, 

To gain th' advantage of the set, 4 645 

And lurch the amorous rook and cheat. 

Bor as the Bythagorean soul 

Buns thro' all beasts, and fish, and fowl, 5 

John Doe and Richard Eoe, or Cams and Titus, in the civil law. See 
an amusing paper on the subject in Spectator, 577. But Butler has hu- 
morously changed John o' Nokes into a female. 

1 The gipsies, it is said, are satisfied of the validity of such decisions. 

2 Alluding to several revisions of the Common Prayer before the last, where 
it stood, " til death us depart," and then was altered to, " til death us do part." 

3 They used to burn themselves on the funeral piles of their husbands ; 
a custom which has but recently been abolished. 

4 Set, that is, the game, a term at tennis. 

5 The doctrine of metempsychosis. Pythagoras, according to Heraclides, 



CA>"TO I.] HUDIBEAS. 291 

Aud has a smack of ev'ry one, 

So love does, and has ever done ; 050 

And therefore, though 'tis ne'er so fond, 1 

Takes strangely to the vagabond. 

"lis but an ague that's reverst, 

Whose hot fit takes the patient first, 

That after burns •with cold as much 655 

As iron in Greenland does the touch ; 2 

Melts in the furnace of desire, 

Like glass, that's but the ice of fire ; 

And when his heat of fancy's over, 

Becomes as hard and frail a lover : 3 660 

For when he's with love-powder laden, 

And prim'd and cock'd by Miss or Madam, 

The smallest sparkle of an eye 

Gives fire to his artillery, 

And off the loud oaths go, but, -while 665 

They're in the very act, recoil : 

Hence 'tis so few dare take their chance 

"Without a sep'rate maintenance ; 

And widows, who have try'd one lover, 

Trust none again 'till they 've made over; 4 670 

Or if they do, before they marry, 

The foxes weigh the geese they carry ; 5 

used to say that he remembered not only what men, but what plants and 
what animals, his soul had passed through. And Empedocles declared of 
nimself, that he had been first a boy, then a girl, then a plant, then a bird, 
then a fish. 

1 In the edition of 1678, " ere so fond." 

2 Metals, if applied to the flesh, in very cold climates, occasion extreme 
pain. This well-known fact is occasioned by the rapid and excessive ab- 
straction of caloric from the flesh ; just as a burn is by the rapid and exces- 
sive communication of it. Virgil, in his Georgics, I. 92, speaks of cold as 
burning. Some years ago, we believe in 1814, a report ran through the news- 
papers that a boy, putting his tongue, out of bravado, to the iron of Menai 
bridge, when the cold was below zero, found it adhere so violently, that it 
could not be withdrawn without surgical aid, and the loss of part of it. 

3 That is, becomes as hard and frail as glass : for after being melted 
in the furnace of desire, he congeals like melted glass, which, when the 
heat is over, is not unlike ice. 

4 Made over their property, in trust, to a third person for their sole and 
separate use. 

5 Sir Kenelm Digby, in his Treatise on Bodies, chap. 36, § 38, relates this 
story of the fox. 

u 2 



292 HUD1BEAS. [PART III. 

And ere they venture o'er a stream, 

Know how to size themselves and them. 

"Whence wittiest ladies always choose 675 

To undertake the heaviest goose : 

For now the world is grown so wary, 

That few of either sex dare marry, 

But rather trust, on tick, t' amours, 

The cross and pile, for better or worse ; * 680 

A mode that is held honourable, 

As well as French, and fashionable : 

For when it falls out for the best, 

"Where both are incommoded least, 

In soul and body two unite, 685 

To make up one hermaphrodite, 

Still amorous, and fond, and billing, 

Like Philip and Mary on a shilling, 2 

They 've more punctilios and capriches 

Between the petticoat and breeches, 690 

More petulant extravagances, 

Than poets make 'em in romances ; 

Tho', when their heroes 'spouse the datnes, 

We hear no more of charms and flames ; 

For then their late attracts decline, 695 

And turn as eager as prick' d wine ; 

And all their catterwauling tricks, 

In earnest to as jealous piques; 

Which th' ancients wisely signify'd 

By th' yellow mantos of the bride. 3 700 

For jealousy is but a kind 

Of clap and grmcam. of the mind, 4 

1 Signifying a mere toss up, heads or tails. 

2 On the shillings of Philip and Mary, coined 1555, the faces are placed 
opposite, and near to each other. Cleveland, in his poem on an Hermaphro- 
dite, has a similar expression : 

" Thus did nature's mintage vary, 
Coining thee a Philip and Mary." 

3 The bride, among the Romans, was brought home to her husband in a 
yellow veil. The widow intimates that the yellow colour of the veil was an 
emblem of jealousy. 

4 The later editions read crincam ; either of them is a cant word, denoting 
an infectious disease, or whimsical affection of the mind, applied commonly 



CA>'TO I.] HrDIBBAS. 293 

The natural effects of love, 

As other flames and aches ' prove : 

But all the mischief is, the doubt 705 

On whose account they first broke out ; 

Tor tho' Chineses go to bed, 

And lie-in in their ladies' stead, 2 

And, for the pains they took before, 

Are nurs'd and pamper' d to do more ; 710 

Our green-men 3 do it worse, when th hap 

To fall in labour of a clap ; 

Both lay the child to one another, 

But who's the father, who the mother, 

to love, lewdness, or jealousy. Thus, in the manors of East and Vest 
Enborne, in Berkshire, if the widow by incontinence forfeits her free bench, 
she may recover it again by riding into the next manor court, backward, on 
a black ram, with his tail in her hand, and saying the following words : 

Here I am, riding upon a black ram, 
Like a whore as 1 am : 
And for my crincum crancum, 
Have lost my bincum bancum. 

Blount's Fragmenta Antiq. p. 144. 

Nares's Glossary affords the following illustration. "You must know, 
Sir, in a nobleman 'tis abusive ; no, in him the serpigo, in a knight the 
grincomes, in a gentleman the Neapolitan scabb, and in a serving man or 
artificer the plaine pox." Jones's Adrasta, 1635. But see "Wright's 
Glossary, sub voc. Crincombes, Crancum, Grincomes. 

1 Aches was a dissyllable in Butler's time, and long afterwards. See 
note 3 at page 191. 

2 In some countries, after the wife has recovered from her lying in, it has 
been the custom for the husband to go to bed, and be treated with the same 
care and tenderness. See Apollonius Rhodius, II. 1013, and Valerius Flac- 
CUs, v. 148. The history of mankind hath scarcely furnished any thing more 
unaccountable than the prevalence of this custom. We meet with it in 
ancient and modern times, in the Old World and in the New, among nations 
who could never have had the least intercourse with each other. It is prac- 
tised in China, and in Purchas's Pilgrims it is said to be practised among 
the Brazilians. At Haarlem, a cambric cockade hung to the door, shows 
that the woman of the house is brought to bed, and that her husband claims 
a protection from arrests during the six weeks of his wife's confinement. 
Polnitz Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 396. 

3 Raw and inexperienced youths ; green is still used in the same sense. 
Shakespeare, in Hamlet, Act iv. sc. 5, says : 

And we have done but greenly to inter him. 



294 HTJDIBEAS. [PAJRT III. 

'Tis hard to say in multitudes, 715 

Or who imported the French goods. 1 

But health and sickness b'ing all one, 

"Which both engag'd before to own, 2 

And are not with their bodies bound 

To worship, only when they're sound, 720 

Both give and take their equal shares 

Of all they suffer by false wares ; 

A fate no lover can divert 

With all his caution, wit, and art : 

For 'tis in vain to think to guess 725 

At women by appearances, 

That paint and patch their imperfections 

Of intellectual complexions, 

And daub their tempers o'er with washes 

As artificial as their faces ; 730 

Wear under vizard-masks 3 their talents 

And mother-wits before their gallants ; 

1 Nicholas Monardes, a physician of Seville, who died 1577, tells us, that 
this disease was supposed to have heen brought into Europe at the siege of 
Naples, from the West Indies, by some of Columbus's sailors who accom- 
panied him to Naples, on his return from his first voyage in 1493. "When 
peace was there made between the French and Spaniards, the armies of both 
nations had free intercourse, and conversing with the same women were in- 
fected by this disorder. The Spaniards thought they had received the 
contagion from the French, and the French maintained that it had been 
communicated to them by the Spaniards. Guicciardini, at the end of his 
second book of the History of Italy, dates the origin of this distemper in 
Europe, at the year 1495. But Dr Gascoigne, as quoted by Anthony 
Wood, says he knew several persons who had died of it in his time, that 
is, before 1457, in which year his will was proved. Indeed, after all the 
pains which have been taken by inquisitive writers to prove that this disease 
was brought from America, or the West Indies, the fact is not sufficiently 
established. Perhaps it was generated in Guinea, or some other equinoctial 
part of Africa. Astruc, who wrote the History of Diseases, says it was brought 
from the West Indies, between the years 1494 and 1496. In the earliest 
printed book on the subject, Leonicenus de Epidemia quam Itali Morbem 
Gallicum, Galli vero Neapolitanutn vocant, Venet. Aldi, 1497, the disease 
is said to have been till then unknown in Ferrara. 

2 Alluding to the words of the marriage ceremony : so in the following 
Vnes, 

— with their bodies bound 
To worship. 

8 Masks were introduced at the Eestoration, and were then worn as a 



CA2FT0 I.] HTTDIBBAS. 295 

Until they're hamper' d in the noose, 

Too fast to dream of breaking loose : 

"WTien all the flaws they strove to hide 735 

Are made unready with the bride, 

That with her wedding-clothes undresses 

Her complaisance and gentilesses ; 

Tries all her arts to take upon her 

The government, from th' eas} r owner ; 7 10 

Until the wretch is glad to wave 

His lawful right, and turn her slave ; 

Finds all his having and his holding 

Bedue'd t' eternal noise and scolding ; 

The conjugal petard, that tears 745 

Down all portcullices of ears, 1 

And makes the volley of one tongue 

For all their leathern shields too strong ; 

When only arm'd with noise and nails, 

The female silkworms ride the males,' 2 750 

Transform 'em into rams and goats, 

Like syrens, with their charming notes ; 3 

Sweet as a screech-owl's serenade, 

Or those enchanting murmurs made 

By th' husband mandrake, and the wife, 755 

Both buried, like themselves, alive. 4 

Quoth he, these reasons are but strains 
Of wanton, over-heated brains, 

distinctive sign by the gay ladies of the theatre. Afterwards the use of 
them became more general. 

1 The poet humorously compares the noise and clamour of a scolding wife, 
which breaks the drum of her husband's ears, to the petard, or short cannon, 
used for beating down the gates of a castle. 

2 This was one of the early beliefs respecting the silkworm. See Edward 
"Williams' Virginia's richly valued, Lond. 16-50, p. 26. 

3 The Sirens, according to the poets, were three sea-monsters, half 
women and half fish ; their names were Parthenope, Ligea, and Leucosia. 
Their usual residence was about the island of Sicily, where, by the charm- 
ing melody of their voices, they used to detain those that heard them, and 
then transformed them into some sort of brute animals. 

4 Ancient botanists entertained various conceits about this plant ; in its 
forked roots they discovered the shapes of men and women ; and the sound 
which proceeded from its strong fibres when strained or torn from the 
ground, they took for the voice of a human being ; sometimes they im- 
agined that they had distinctly heard their conversation. The poet takes 
the liberty of enlarging upon those hints, and represents the mandrake 



296 HUDIBEAS. [PAET III. 

"Which ralliers in their wit or drink 

Do rather wheedle with, than think. 760 

Man was not man in paradise, 

Until he was created twice. 

And had his better half, his bride, 

Carv'd from th' original, his side, 1 

T' amend his natural defects, 765 

And perfect his recruited sex ; 

Enlarge his breed, at once, and lessen 

The pains and labour of increasing, 

By changing them for other cares, 

As by his dried-up paps appears. 770 

His body, that stupendous frame, 

Of all the world the anagram, 2 

Is of two equal parts compact, 

In shape and symmetry exact, 

Of which the left and female side 775 

Is to the manly right a bride, 3 
husband and wife quarrelling under ground ; a situation, he says, not more 
uncomfortable than that of a married pair continually at variance, since 
these, if not in fact buried alive, are so virtually. 

1 Thus Cleveland : 

Adam, 'till his rib was lost, 
Had the sexes thus engrost. 
"When Providence our sire did cleave, 
And out of Adam carved Eve, 
Then did man 'bout wedlock treat, 
To make his body up complete. 

2 Anagram means a transposition of the letters of a word by which a 
new meaning is extracted from it ; as in Dr Burney's well-known anagram 
of Horatio Nelson — Honor est a Nilo. Man is often called the microcosm, 
or world in miniature, and it is in this sense that Butler describes him. 

3 In the Symposium of Plato, Aristophanes, one of the dialogists, relates, 
that the human species, at its oi'iginal formation, consisted not only of males 
and females, but of a third kind, combining both sexes in one. This last 
species, it is said, having rebelled against Jupiter, was, by way of punish- 
ment, completely divided ; whence the strong propensity which inclines the 
separate parts to a reiinion, and the assumed origin of love. And since it is 
hardly possible that the dissevered moieties should stumble upon each 
other, after they have wandered about the earth, we may, upon the same 
hypothesis, account for the number of unhappy and disproportionate matches 
which men daily encounter, by saying that they mistake their proper halves. 
Moore makes a happy use of this notion in speaking of ballad music before 
it is wedded to poetry : "A pretty air without words resembles one of those 
half creatures of Plato, which are described as wandering in search of the 
remainder of themselves through the world." — National Airs. 



CA>"TO I.] HUDIBEAS. 207 

Both join'd together with such art, 

That nothing else but death can part. 

Those heav'nl' attracts of yours, your eyes, 

And face, that all the world surprise, 780 

That dazzle all that look upon ye, 

And scorch all other ladies tawny : 

Those ravishing and charming graces, 

Are all made up of two half faces 

That, in a mathematic line, 785 

Like those in other heavens, join ; l 

Of which, if either grew alone, 

'Twould fright as much to look upon : 

And so would that sweet hud, your lip, 

"Without the other's fellowship. 790 

Our noblest senses act by pairs, 

Two eyes to see, to hear two ears ; 

Th' intelligencers of the mind, 

To wait upon the soul design' d : 

But those that serve the body alone, 795 

Are single and confin'd to one. 

The world is but two parts, that meet 

And close at th' equinoctial fit ; 

And so are all the works of nature, 

Stamp'd with her signature on matter ; 800 

"Which all her creatures, to a leaf, 

Or smallest blade of grass, receive. 2 

All which sufficiently declare 

How entirely marriage is her care, 

The only method that she uses, 805 

In all the wonders she produces ; 

And those that take their rules from her 

Can never be deceiv'd, nor err : 

For what secures the civil life, 

But pawns of children, and a wife ? 3 810 

That lie, like hostages, at stake, 

To- pay for all men undertake ; 

1 That is, that join insensibly in an imperceptible line, like the imaginary 
lines of mathematicians. Other heavens, that is, the real heavens. 

2 Alluding to the sexual laws of nature, as typified in plants down ti 
the smallest forms. 

3 See Lord Bacon's Essay, No. viii. 









298 HTTDIBRAS, [l'ART III. 

To whom it is as necessary 

As to be born and breathe, to marry ; 

So universal, all mankind 815 

In nothing else is of one mind : 

For in what stupid age, or nation, 

Was marriage ever out of fashion ? 

Unless among the Amazons, 1 

Or cloister' d friars and vestal nuns, 820 

Or Stoics, who, to bar the freaks 

And loose excesses of the sex, 

Prepost'rously would have all women 

Turn'd up to all the world in common ; 2 

Tho' men would find such mortal feuds 825 

In sharing of their public goods, 

'Twould put them to more charge of lives, 

Than they're supply'd with now by wives ; 

Until they graze, and wear their clothes, 

As beasts do, of their native growths : s 830 

For simple wearing of their horns 

Will not suffice to serve their turns. 

For what can we pretend t' inherit, 

Unless the marriage deed will bear it ? 

Could claim no right to lands or rents, 835 

But for our parents' settlements ; 

Had been but younger sons o' th' earth, 

Debarr'd it all, but for our birth. 4 

What honours, or estates of peers, 

Could be preserv'd but by their heirs ? 840 

And what security maintains 

Their right and title, but the banns ? 

1 The Amazons, according to the old mythological stories, avoided mar- 
riage and permitted no men to live amongst them, nevertheless held periodi- 
cal intercourse with them. The vestals were under a vow of perpetual 
chastity. 

2 Diogenes asserted that marriage was nothing but an empty name. And 
Zeno, the father of the Stoics, maintained that all women ought to be com- 
mon, that no words were obscene, and no parts of the body need be covered. 

3 i. e. such intercommunity of women would be productive of the worst 
consequences, unless mankind were reduced to the most barbarous state of 
nature, and men became altogether brutes. 

4 If there had been no matrimony, we should have had no provision 
made for us by our forefathers ; but, like younger children of our primitive 
parent the earth, should have been excluded from every possession. 



CANTO I.] HUDIBRAS. 200 

"What crowns could be hereditary, 

If greatest inonarchs did not marry, 

And with their consorts consummate s 15 

Their weightiest interests of state ? 

For all th' amours of princes are 

But guarantees of peace or war. 

Or what but marriage has a charm, 

The rage of empires to disarm ? S50 

Make blood and desolation cease, 

And fire and sword unite in peace, 

"When all their fierce contests for forage 

Conclude in articles of marriage ? 

Xor does the genial bed provide 855 

Less for the int'rests of the bride, 

"Who else had not the least pretence 

T' as much as due benevolence ; 

Could no more title take upon her 

To virtue, quality, and honour, 860 

Than ladies errant, unconfin'd. 

And femrue-coverts to all mankind. 

All women would be of one piece, 

The virtuous matron, and the miss ; 

The nymphs of chaste Diana's train 865 

The same with those in Lewkner's-lane, 1 

But for the difference marriage makes 

'Twixt wives and Ladies of the Lakes : 2 

Besides, the joys of place and birth, 

The sex's paradise on earth, 3 870 

A privilege so sacred held, 

That none will to their mothers yield ; 

1 Charles-street, Drury-lane, inhabited chiefly by strumpets. 

2 Meaning ladies of pleasure. The Lady of the Lake was represented 
in some of the old romances as a mistress of king Arthur. 

3 Thus Mr Pope : 

For sylphs, yet mindful of their ancient race, 
Are, as when women, wond'rous fond of place. 

Our poet, though vindicating the ladies and the happy state of matrimony, 
cannot help introducing this stroke of satire : Bastards have no place, or 
rank. 






300 HUDIBEAS. [PART III. 

But rather than not go before, 

Abandon heaven at the door -, 1 

And if th' indulgent law allows 875 

A greater freedom to the spouse, 

The reason is, because the wife 

Runs greater hazards of her life ; 

Is trusted with the form and matter 

Of all mankind, by careful nature, 880 

Where man brings nothing but the stuff 

She frames the wond'rous fabric of ; 

Who therefore, in a strait, may freely 

Demand the clergy of her belly, 2 

And make it save her the same way, 885 

It seldom misses to betray ; 

Unless both parties wisely enter 

Into the liturgy-indenture. 3 

And tho' some fits of small contest 

Sometimes fall out among the best, 890 

That is no more than ev'ry lover 

Does from his hackney lady suffer ; 

That makes no breach of faith and love, 

But rather, sometimes, serves t'improve ; 

For as, in running, ev'ry pace 895 

Is but between two legs a race, 

In which both do their uttermost 

To get before, and win the post ; 

Yet when they're at their race's ends, 

They're still as kind and constant friends, 900 

And, to relieve their weariness, 

By turns give one another ease ; 

1 That is, will not even go to church if they have not their right of pre- 
cedence. Chaucer says of the wife of Bath, 451 : 

In all the parish wif ne was there non, 
That to the offring before hire shulde gon, 
And if ther did, certain so wroth was she, 
That she was out of alle charitee. 

2 Meaning benefit of clergy, on account of pregnancy. See note on line 
522, at page 286. 

3 This alludes to the form enjoined in the Directory, when it was con- 
trary to law to be married by the service in the Book of Common Prayer. 



CASTO I.] 



nrDiEKAS. 



301 



So all those false alarms of strife 

Between the husband and the wife, 

And little quarrels, often prove 905 

To be but new recruits of love ; l 

"When those who're always kind or coy, 2 

In time must either tire or cloy. 

]N"or are their loudest clamours more 

Than as they're relish'd, sweet or sour ; 910 

Like music, that proves bad or good, 

According as 'tis understood. 

In all amours a lover burns 

"With frowns, as well as smiles, by turns ; 

And hearts have been as oft with sullen, 915 

As charming looks, surpris'd and stolen : 

Then why should more bewitching clamour 

Some lovers not as much enamour ? 

For discords make the sweetest airs, 

And curses are a kind of pray'rs ; 920 

Too slight alloys for all those grand 

Felicities by marriage gain'd : 

For nothing else has pow'r to settle 

Th' interests of love perpetual ; 

An act and deed that makes one heart 925 

Become another's counter-part, 

And passes fines on faith and love, 3 

Inroll'd and register'd above, . 

To seal the slippery knots of vows, 

Which nothing else but death can loose. 930 

And what security's too strong 

To guard that gentle heart from wrong, 

That to its friend is glad to pass 

Itself away, and all it has, 

1 So Terence. The quarrels of lovers are the renewal of love. Andria 
III. 3. 

2 Coy, or Coye, is used here in the sense of toying or fondling. So 
Shakspeare, 

" Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed, 
While I thy amiable cheek do coy." 

Mids. N. D. Act iv. sc. 1. 
But see Wright's Glossary sub voce. 

3 That is, makes them irrevocable, and secures the title ; as passing a fine 
in law does a conveyance or settlement. 



302 HTJDIBRAS. [PA.RT III. 

And, like an anchorite, gives over 935 

This world, for th' heav'n of a lover ? l 

I grant, quoth she, there are some few 
Who take that course, and find it true ; 
But millions, whom the same does sentence 
To heav'n b' another way, repentance. 940 

Love's arrows are hut shot at rovers, 2 
Tho' all they hit they turn to lovers, 
And all the weighty consequents 
Depend upon more blind events 

Than gamesters when they play a set, 945 

"With greatest cunning, at piquet, 
Put out with caution, but take in 
They know not what, unsight, unseen. 
For what do lovers, when they're fast 
In one another's arms embrae'd, 950 

But strive to plunder, and convey 
Each other, like a prize, away ? 
To change the property of selves, 
As sucking children are by elves ? 3 
And if they use their persons so, 955 

"What will they to their fortunes do ? 
Their fortunes ! the perpetual aims 
Of all their estasies and flames. 
For when the money's on the book, 
And " all my worldly goods" — but spoke, 4 960 

The formal livery and seisin 
That puts a lover in possession, 
To that alone the bridegroom's wedded, 
The bride a flam that's superseded ; 
To that their faith is still made good, 965 

And all the oaths to us they vow'd ; 

1 In this speech the Knight makes amends for previous uncourteousness, 
and defends the ladies and the married state with great gallantry, wit, and 
good sense. 

a That is, shot at random, not at a target. 

3 The fairies were believed to be capable of exchanging infants in the 
cradle for some of their own "Elfin brood," or for the children of other 
parents. See Keightley's Fairy Mythology. 

4 Alluding to the form of marriage in the Common Prayer Book, where 
the fee is directed to be put upon the book with the wedding-ring, and the 
bridegroom endows the bride with all his worldly goods. 



CANT 3 I.J HUDIBEAS. 303 

For when we once resign our pow'rs, 

We've nothing left we can call ours : 

Our money's now become the miss 

Of all your lives and services ; 970 

And we forsaken and postpon'd, 

But bawds to what before we own'd ; 

"Which, as it made y' at first gallant us, 

So now hires others to supplant us, 

Until 'tis all turn'd out of doors, 975 

As we had been, for new amours. 

For what did ever heiress yet 

By being born to lordships get ? 

"When the more lady she's of manors, 

She's but expos'd to more trepanners, 980 

Pays for their projects and designs, 

And for her own destruction fines ; l 

And does but tempt them with her riches, 

To use her as the dev'l does witches, 

Who takes it for a special grace, 985 

To be their cully for a space, 

That, when the time's expir'd, the drazels 2 

For ever may become his vassals : 

So she, bewitch' d by rooks and spirits, 

Betrays herself, and all sh' inherits ; 990 

Is bought and sold, like stolen goods, 

By pimps, and match-makers, and bawds ; 

Until they force her to convey 

And steal the thief himself away. 

These are the everlasting fruits 995 

Of all your passionate love-suits, 

Th' effects of all your am'rous fancies, 

To portions and inheritances ; 

Tour love-sick raptures for fruition 

Of dowry, jointure, and tuition ; iooj 

To which you make address and courtship, 

And with your bodies strive to worship, 

1 Fines, signifies pays ; implying that her wealth, by exposing her to the 
snares of fortune-hunters, may be the cause of her destruction. 

2 The sluts or draggle-tails. See "Wright's Provincial Dictionary. 



304 HTTDIBEAS. [PAET III. 

That th' infant's fortunes may partake 

Of love too, 1 for the mother's sake. 

For these you play at purposes, 1905 

And love your loves with A's and B's ; 2 

For these, at Beast and 1' Ombre woo, 3 

And play for love and money too ; 4 

Strive who shall be the ablest man 

At right gallanting of a fan ; 1010 

And who the most genteelly bred 

At sucking of a vizard-bead ; 5 

How best t' accost us in all quarters, 

T' our Question and Command new garters ; 6 

And solidly discourse upon 1015 

All sorts of dresses pro and con : 

For there's no mystery nor trade, 

But in the art of love is made. 7 

1 That is, the widow's children by a former husband, who are under age ; 
to whom the lover would willingly be guardian, to have the management of 
the jointure. 

2 This is still imposed at forfeits. But see Pepys's Diary. 

3 Fashionable games much in vogue in the time of Charles II. Ombre 
was introduced at the Eestoration. Beast, or Angel-beast, was similar to 
Loo. " I love my love with an A," was one of the favourite amusements 
at Whitehall. Pepys tells us that he once found the Duke and Duchess 
of York, with all the great ladies at "Whitehall, " sitting upon a carpet upon 
the ground, there being no chairs, playing at ' I love my love with an A, 
because he is so and so ; and I hate him with an A, because of this and 
that ; ' and some of them, particularly the Duchess herself, and my Lady 
Castlemaine, were very witty." 

* The widow, in these and the following lines, gives no bad sketch of a 
person who endeavours to retrieve his circumstances by marriage, and 
practises every method in his power to recommend himself to his rich mis- 
tress : he plays with her at Questions and Commands, endeavours to divert 
her with cards, puts himself in masquerade, flirts her fan, talks of flames 
and darts, aches and sufferings ; which last, the poet intimates, might more 
justly be attributed to other causes. s 

5 Masks were kept close to the face, by a bead fixed to the inside of 
them, and held in the mouth, when the lady's hands were otherwise em- 
ployed. 

6 At the vulgar play of Questions and Commands, a forfeit was often 
to take off a lady's garter : expecting this therefore the lady provided her- 
self with new ones. 

7 That is, made use of, or practised. 



CANTO I.] HUDIBBAS. 303 

And when you have more debts to pay 

Than Michaelmas and Lady-day,' 1020 

And no way possible to do 't 

But love and oaths, and restless suit, 

To us y' apply, to pay the scores 

Of all your cully'd past amours ; 

Act o'er your flames and darts again, 1025 

And charge lis with your wounds and pain ; 

"Which others' influences long since 

Have charm' d your noses with, and shins ; 

For which the surgeon is unpaid, 

And like to be, without our aid. 1030 

Lord ! what an am'rous thing is want ! 

How debts and mortgages enchant ! 

"What graces must that lady have, 

That can from executions save ! 

What charms, that can reverse extent, 1035 

And null degree and exigent ! 

What magical attracts, and graces, 

That can redeem from scire facias ! 2 

From bonds and statutes can discharge, 

And from contempts of courts enlarge ! 1010 

These are the highest excellencies 

Of all vour true or false pretences ; 

And you would damn yourselves and swear 

As much t' an hostess dowager, 

Grown fat and pursy by retail 1045 

Of pots of beer and bottled ale, 

And find her fitter for your turn, 

For fat is wondrous apt to burn ; 

Who at your flames would soon take fire, 

Eelent, and melt to your desire, 1050 

1 These are the two principal rent days in the year : unsatisfactory to 
the landlord, when his outgoings exceed his incomings. 

2 Here the poet shows his knowledge of the law, and law terms, which 
he always uses with great propriety. Execution is obtaining possession of 
anything recovered by judgment of law. Extent is a writ of execution at the 
sui't of the crown, which extends over all the defendant's lands and other pro- 
perty, in order to satisfy a bond, engagement, or forfeit, Exigent is a writ 
requiring a person to appear ; and lies where the defendant in an action can- 
not personally be found, or on anything of his in the country, whereby he may 
be distrained. Scire facias is a writ to enforce the execution of judgment. 



306 HTJJDIBKAS. [PART III. 

And, like a candle in the socket, 
Dissolves her graces hit' your pocket. 

By this time 'twas grown dark and late, 
When th' heard a knocking at the gate 
Laid on in haste, with such a powder, 1 1055 

The hlows grew louder and still louder : 
"Which Hudibras, as if they 'd been 
Bestow'd as freely on his skin, 
Expounding hy his Inward Light, 
Or rather more prophetic fright, 1060 

To be the wizard, come to search, 
And take him napping in the lurch, 
Turn'd pale as ashes, or a clout ; 
But why, or wherefore, is a doubt : 
For men will tremble, and turn paler, 1065 

With too much, or too little valour. 
His heart laid on, as if it tried 
To force a passage through his side, 
Impatient, as he vow'd, to wait 'em ; 
But in a fury to fly at 'em ; 1070 

And therefore beat, and laid about, 
To find a cranny to creep out. 
But she, who saw in what a taking 
The Knight was by his furious quaking, 
Undaunted cry'd, Courage, Sir Knight, 1075 

Know I'm resolv'd to break no rite 
Of hospitality t' a stranger ; 
But, to secure you out of danger, 
Will here myself stand sentinel, 

To guard this pass 'gainst Sidrophel : 1080 

Women, you know, do seldom fail, 
To make the stoutest men turn tail, 
And bravely scorn to turn their backs, 
Upon the desp'ratest attacks. 

At this the Knight grew resolute, 1085 

As Ironside, or Hardiknute ; 2 



1 Haste, bustle. "Wright's Provincial Dictionary. 

2 Two princes celebrated for their valour in the 11th century. The 
former the predecessor, the latter the son and successor, of Canute the 
Great 



CANTO I.] HTTDIBEAS. 307 

His fortitude began to rally, 

And out he cry'd aloud, to sally ; 

But she besought him to convey 

His courage rather out o' th' way, 1090 

And lodge in ambush out of the floor, 

Or fortified behind a door, 

That, if the enemy should enter, 

He might relieve her in th' adventure. 

Meanwhile they knock'd against the door 1095 

As fierce as at the gate before ; 
Which made the renegado Knight 
Eelapse again t' his former fright. 
He thought it desperate to stay 

Till the enemy had forc'd his way, 1100 

But rather post himself to serve 
The lady for a fresh reserve. 
His duty was not to dispute, 
But what she 'd order' d execute ; 
Which he resolv'd in haste t' obey, 1105 

And therefore stoutly march' d away, 
And all h' encounter'd fell upon, 
Tho' in the dark, and all alone : 
Till fear, that braver feats performs 
Than ever courage dar'd in arms, mo 

Had drawn him up before a pass, 
To stand upon his guard, and face : 
This he courageously invaded, 
And, having enter'd, barricado'd ; 
Ensconc'd himself as formidable 1115 

As could be underneath a table p 
Where he lay down in ambush close, 
T' expect th' arrival of his foes. 
Pew minutes he had lain perdue, 
To guard his desp'rate avenue, 1120 

Before he heard a dreadful shout, 
As loud as putting to the rout. 
With which impatiently alarm' d, 
He fancied th' enemy had storm'd, 
And after ent'ring, Sidrophel 1125 

Was fall'n upon the guards pell-mell ; 
x 2 



308 HTJDIBEAS. [PABT III. 

He therefore sent out all his senses 

To bring him in intelligences, 

Which vulgars, out of ignorance. 

Mistake for falling in a trance ; 1130 

But those that trade in geomancy, 1 

Affirm to be the strength of fancy ; 

In which the Lapland magi deal, 2 

And things incredible reveal. 

Meanwhile the foe beat up his quarters, 1135 

And storm' d the outworks of his fortress ; 

And as another of the same 

Degree and party, in arms and fame, 

That in the same cause had engag'd 

And war with equal conduct wag'd, 1140 

By vent'ring only but to thrust 

His head a span beyond his post, 

B' a gen'ral of the cavaliers 

Was dragg'd thro' a window by the ears : 3 

So he was serv'd in his redoubt, 1145 

And by the other end pull' d out. 

Soon as they had him at their mercy, 
They put him to the cudgel fiercely, 
As if they scorn'd to trade and barter, 
By giving, or by taking quarter: 1150 

They stoutly on his quarters laid, 
Until his scouts came in t' his aid : 
Bor when a man is past his sense, 
There's no way to reduce kim thence, 
But twingeing him by th' ears or nose, 1155 

Or laying on of heavy blows :- 

1 A sort of divination by circles and pricks in^the earth; used here for 
any sort of conjuring. The Knight's trance was a swoon through fear. 

3 Lapland, on account of its remaining pagan so long, was celebrated 
through the rest of Europe as the country of magicians and witches. They 
are reputed to have obtained the revelations necessary to making their pre- 
dictions during trances. 

3 This circumstance happened to Sir Richard Philips, of Picton Castle, 
in Pembrokeshire. The Cavaliers, commanded by Colonel Egerton, at- 
tacked this place, and demanded a parley. Sir Richard consented ; and, 
being a little man, stepped upon a bench, and showed himself at one of 
the windows. The colonel, who was high in stature, sat on horseback 
underneath ; and pretending to be deaf, desired the other to come as near 



CA> T TO I.] HUDIBEAS. 309 

And if that will not do the deed, 
To burning with hot irons proceed. 1 

No sooner was he come t' himself, 
But on his neck a sturdy elf 1160 

Clapp'd in a trice his cloven hoof, 
And thus attack' d him with reproof: 

Mortal, thou art betray'd to us 
B' our friend, thy evil genius, 

AVho for thy horrid perjuries, 11(5 

Thy breach of faith, and turning lies, 
The brethren's privilege against 
The wicked, on themselves, the saints, 
Has here thy wretched carcass sent, 
For just revenge and punishment ; 1170 

"Which thou hast now no way to lessen, 
But by an open, free confession : 2 
For if we catch thee failing once, 
'Twill fall the heavier on thy bones. 

What made thee venture to betray, 1175 

And filch the lady's heart away, 
To spirit her to matrimony ? — 

That which contracts all matches, money. 
It was th' enchantment of her riches, 
That made m' apply t' your crony witches ; 3 nso 

That in return would pay th' expense, 
The wear and tear of conscience, 4 
Which I could have patch' d up, and turn'd, 
For th' hundredth part of what I earn'd. 

Didst thou not love her then ? Speak true. 1185 
No more, quoth he, than I love you. — 

Tf ow would' st thou've us'd her, and her money ? 
First turn'd her up to alimony ; 5 

him as he could. Sir Richard then leaned a good deal from the window ; 
when the colonel seized him by the ears, and drew him out. Soon after the 
castle surrendered. 

1 Alluding to the use of cautery in apoplexy. 

2 This scene is imitated, but with much less wit and learning, in a poem 
called Dunstable Downs, falsely attributed to Butler. 

3 Your old friends and companions. 

4 The Knight confesses that he would have sacrificed his conscience to 
money ; in reality, he had rid himself of it long before. 

5 To provide for herself, as horses do when they are turned to grass. 
The poet might possibly intend a jeu de mot. Alimony is a separate main- 



310 HT7DIBEAS. [PAET III. 

And laid her dowry out in law, 

To null her jointure with a flaw, 1190 

"Which I beforehand had agreed 

T' have put, on purpose, in the deed, 

And bar her widow' s-making-over 

T' a friend in trust, or private lover. 

What made thee pick and chuse her out 1195 

T' employ their sorceries about ? — 

That which makes gamesters play with those 
"Who have least wit, and most to lose. 

But didst thou scourge thy vessel thus, 
As thou hast damn'd thyself to us ? — 1200 

I see you take me for an ass : 
'Tis true, I thought the trick would pass 
Upon a woman well enough, 
As 't has been often found by proof; 
Whose humours' are not to be won 1205 

But when they are impos'd upon ; 
v For love approves of all they do 
That stand for candidates, and woo. 

Why didst thou forge those shameful lies 
Of bears and witches in disguise ? — 1210 

That is no more than authors give 
The rabble credit to believe ; 
A trick of following their leaders, 
To entertain their gentle readers ; 
And we have now no other way 1215 

Of passing all we do or say ; 
Which, when 'tis natural and true, 
Will be believ'd b' a very few, 
Beside the danger of offence, 
The fatal enemy of sense. 1220 

Why dost thou chuse that cursed sin, 
Hypocrisy, to set up in ? — 

Because it is the thriving' st calling, 
The only saints' bell that rings all in ; l 

tenance paid by the husband to the wife, where she is not convicted of 
adultery. The Earl of Strafford relates a case rather worse tban Hudibras 
intended ; — Queen Elizabeth reprimanded Stakeley for ill-using his wife, to 
which he replied, that "he had already turned her into her petticoat, and 
if any one could make more of her, they might take her for him." 

1 The small bell, which rings immediately before the minister begins th? 



CAKTO I.J HrDTBEAS. 311 

In which all churches are concern'd, 

And is the easiest to be learn'd : 

For no degrees, unless th' employ it, 

Can ever gain much, or enjoy it. 

A gift that is not only able 

To domineer among the rabble, i|3fl 

But by the laws empower' d to rout, 

And awe the greatest that stand oat ; 

Which few hold forth against, for fear 

Their hands should slip, and come too near ; 

For no sin else, among the saints, 1235 

Is taught so tenderly against. 

"What made thee break thy plighted vows ? — 
That which makes others break a house, 
And hang, and scorn ye all, before 
Endure the plague of being poor. 1210 

Quoth he, I see you have more tricks 
Than all our doating politics, 
That are grown old and out of fashion, 
Compar'd with your new Reformation ; 
That we must come to school to you, 1245 

To learn your more refin'd and new. 

Quoth he, If you will give me leave 
To tell you what I now perceive, 
You'll find yourself an arrant chouse, 
If y' were but at a Meeting-house. 1250 

'Tis true, quoth he, we ne'er come there, 
Because w' have let 'em out by th' year. 1 

Truly, quoth he, you can't imagine 
"What wond'rous things they will engage in; 
That as your fellow-fiends in hell 1255 

"Were angels all before they fell, 
So are you like to be agen, 
Compar'd with th' angels of us men. 2 

church service, is called the saints' bell ; and when the clerk has rung it 
he says, " he has rung all in." 

1 The devils are here looked upon as landlords of the meeting-houses, 
since the tenants of them were known to be so diabolical, and to hold them 
by no good title ; but as it was uncertain how long these lawless times 
would last, the poet makes the devils let them only by the year : now when 
anything is actually let, landlords never come there, that is, have excluded 
themselves from all right to the use of the premises. 

2 I remember an old attorney, who told me, a little before his death, that 



312 HTJDIBEAS. [PAET 111. 

Quoth he, I am resolv'd to be 
Thy scholar in this mystery ; 1260 

And therefore first desire to know 
Some principles on which you go. 

What makes a knave a child of" God, 1 
And one of us ? 2 — A livelihood. 

What renders beating out of brains 1265 

And murder, godliness ? — Great gains. 

What's tender conscience ? — 'Tis a botch 
That will not bear the gentlest touch ; 
But, breaking out, dispatches more 
Than th' epidemical' st plague-sore. 3 1270 

What makes y' encroach upon our trade, 
And damn all others ? — To be paid. 

What's orthodox and true believing 
Against a conscience ? — A- good living. 4 

What makes rebelling against kings 1275 

A Good Old Cause ? — Administ'rings. 5 

What makes all doctrines plain and clear? — 
About two hundred pounds a year. 

And that which was prov'd true before, 
Prove false again ? — Two hundred more. 12S0 

he had been reckoned a very great rascal, and believed he was so, for he had 
done many roguish and infamous things in his profession : " but," adds he, 
" by what I can observe of the rising generation, the time may come, and 
you may live to see it, when I shall be accounted a very honest man, in 
comparison with those attorneys who are to succeed me." Nash. 

1 A banter on the pamphlets in those days, under the name and form of 
Catechisms: Heylin's Rebel's Catechism, Watson's Cavalier's Catechism, 
Ram's Soldier's Catechism, Parker's Political Catechism, &c. &c. 

2 Both Presbyterians and Independents were fond of saying one of us; 
that is, one of the holy brethren, the elect number, the godly party. 

3 Alluding to the Great Plague of London, in 1665, which destroyed 
68,586 people. Defoe gives a very graphic and painfully interesting account 
of it. 

4 A committee was appointed November 11, 1646, to inquire into-the 
value of all church-livings, in order to plant an able ministry, as was pre- 
tended ; but, in truth, to discover the best and fattest benefices, that the 
champions of the cause might choose for themselves. "Whereof some had 
three or four a-piece ; a lack being pretended of competent pastors. When 
a living was small, the church doors were shut up. " I could name an as- 
sembly-man," says Sir William Dugdale, in his Short View, " who being 
told by an eminent person that a certain church had no incumbent, inquired 
the value of it ; and receiving for answer that it was about £50 a-year, he 
said, if it be no better worth, no godly man will accept it." 

2 — Adrninisterings. See P. iii. c. ii. v. 55. 



0A>"TO I.] HTJDIBKAS. 313 

WTiat makes the breaking of all oaths 
A holy duty ?— Food and clothes. 

What laws and freedom, persecution ? — 
B'ing out of power, and contribution. 

"What makes a church a den of thieves ? — 1285 
A dean and chapter, and white sleeves. 1 

And what would serve, if those were gone, 
To make it orthodox ? — Our own. 

What makes morality a crime, 2 
The most notoi'ious of the time ; 1290 

Morality, which both the saints 
And wicked too cry out against r — 

'Cause grace and virtue are within 
Prohibited degrees of kin ; 

And therefore no true saint allows 1295 

They should be suffer' d to espouse : 
For saints can need no conscience, 
That with morality dispense ; 
As virtue's impious, when 'tis rooted 
In nature only, 'nd not imputed : 1300 

But why the wicked should do so, 
We neither know, nor care to do. 

What's liberty of conscience, 
I' th' natural and genuine sense ? 

'Tis to restore, with more security, 1305 

Rebellion to its ancient purity ; 
And Christian liberty reduce 
To th' elder practice of the Jews ; 
For a large conscience is all one, 
And signifies the same, with none. 3 1310 

It is enough, quoth he, for once, 
And has repriev'd thy forfeit bones : 

1 That is, a bishop who wears lawn sleeves. 

2 Moral goodness was deemed a mean attainment, and much beneath the 
character of saints, who held grace and inspiration to be all meritorious, 
and virtue to have no merit ; nay, some even thought virtue impious, when 
it is rooted only in nature, and not imputed ; some of the modern sects are 
supposed to hold tenets not very unlike this. , Nash. 

3 It is reported of Judge Jefferys, that taking a dislike to a witness who 
had a long beard, he told him that " if his conscience was as long as his 
neard, he had a swinging one : " to which the countryman replied, " My 
Lord, if you measure consciences by beards, you have none at all." 



314 HTTDIBKAS. [PART HI. 

Nick Machiavel had ne'er a trick 

Tho' he gave his name to our Old Nick, 1 

But was below the least of these, 1315 

That pass i' th' world for holiness. 

This said, the furies and the light 
In th' instant vanish' d out of sight, 
And left hiin in the dark alone, 
"With stinks of brimstone and his own. 1320 

The Queen of night, whose large command 
Rules all the sea, and half the land, 2 
- And over moist and crazy brains, 

In high spring-tides, at midnight reigns, 3 

"Was now declining to the west, 1325 

To go to bed and take her rest ; 

When Hudibras, whose stubborn blows 

Deny'd his bones that soft repose, 

Lay still expecting worse and more, 

Stretch'd out at length upon the floor ; 1330 

And tho' he shut his eyes as fast 

As if he 'd been to sleep his last, 

Saw all the shapes that fear or wizards, 

Do make the devil wear for vizards ; 

And pricking up his ears, to hark 1335 

If he could hear, too, in the dark, 

"Was first invaded with a groan, 

And after, in a feeble tone, 

These trembling words : Unhappy wretch, 

"What hast thou gotten by this fetch, 1340 

1 Nicholas Machiavelli was the great Florentine Historian and Statesman 
of the 16th cent. His political principles were loudly condemned by the 
Puritans, because they considered them identified with those of Charles I. 
Nick is a name of the devil, taken from the old Scandinavian and Teutonic 
name of a kind of water-spirit. See Keightley's Fairy Mythology. When 
Machiavel is represented as such a proficient in wickedness, that his name 
hath become an appellation for the devil himself, we are not less entertained 
by the smartness of the sentiment, than we should be if it were supported 
by the truth of history. By the same kind of poetical license Empedoeles, 
in the second canto, is humorously said to have been acquainted with the 
writings of Alexander Eoss, who did not live till about 2000 years after 
him. 

2 The moon is here said to influence the tides and motions of the sea, 
and half mankind, who are assumed to be more or less lunatic. 

3 Insane persons are supposed to be worst at the change and full of the 
moon, when the tides are highest. 



CA>"TO I.] HTTDIBEAS. 315 

Or all thy tricks, in this new trade, 

Thy holy brotherhood o' th' blade ? l 

By saunt'ring still on some adventure, 

And growing to thy horse a centaur ? 2 

To stuff thy skin with swelling knobs 1345 

Of cruel and hard-wooded drubs ? 

For still thou'st had the worst on't yet, 

As well in conquest as defeat : 

Xight is the sabbath of mankind, 

To rest the body and the mind, 1350 

"Which now thou art deny'd to keep, 

And cure thy labour'd corpse with sleep. 

The Knight, who heard the words, explain' d 
As meant to him this reprimand, 
Because the character did hit 1355 

Point-blank upon his case so fit ; 
Believ'd it was some drolling spright 
That staid upon the guard that night, 
And one of those he'd seen, and felt 
The drubs he had so freely dealt ; 1360 

When, after a short pause and groan, 
The doleful spirit thus went on : 

This 'tis t' engage with dogs and bears 
Pell-mell together by the ears, 

And after painful bangs and knocks, 1365 

To He in limbo in the stocks, 
And from the pinnacle of glory 
Fall headlong into purgatory ; 

1 Meaning this religious knight-errantry : this search after trifling offences, 
with intent to punish them as crying sins. Ralpho, who now supposed himself 
alone, vents his sorrows in this soliloquy, which is so artfully worded, as 
equally to suit his own case and the Knight's, and to censure the conduct 
of both. Hence the latter applies the whole as meant to he directed to him- 
self, and comments upon it accordingly to v. 1400, after which the squire 
improves on his master's mistake, and counterfeits the ghost in earnest. 
This seems to have been Butler's meaning, though not readily to be collected 
from his words. Holy brotherhood alludes to the society instituted in Spain, 
called La Santa Hermandad, employed in detecting and apprehending 
thieves and robbers, and executing other parts of the police. 

2 The Centaurs were a people of Thessaly, and supposed to be the first 
managers of horses. Strangers, who had never seen any such thing before, 
reported them to be half man and half beast. 









316 HUDIERAS. [PAET III. 

(Thought he, this devil's full of malice, 

That on my late disasters rallies.) 1370 

Condemn' d to whipping, hut declin'd it, 

By being more heroic-minded ; 

And at a riding handled worse, 

With treats more slovenly and coarse : ! 

Engag'd with fiends in stubborn wars, 1375 

And hot disputes with conjurers ; 

And, when thou 'dst bravely won the day, 

"Wast fain to steal thyself away— 

(I see, thought he, this shameless elf 

"Would fain steal me too from myself, 2 1380 

That impudently dares to own 

What I have suffer' d for and done) ; 

And now, but vent'ring to betray, 

Hast met with vengeance the same way. 

Thought he, how does the devil know 1385 

What 'twas that I design' d to do ? 
His office of intelligence, 
His oracles, are ceas'd long since ; 3 
And he knows nothing of the saints, 
But what some treach'rous spy acquaints. 1390 

This is some pettifogging fiend, 
Some under door-keeper's friend's friend, 
That undertakes to understand, 
And juggles at the second-hand, 

And now would pass for Spirit Po, 4 1395 

And all men's dark concerns foreknow. 
I think I need not fear him for't ; 
These rallying devils do no hurt. 5 

1 Alluding to the result of the Knight's attempt to put down the Skim- 
mington. 

3 A phrase used by Horace, Carm. lib. iv. Od. 13, v. 20 ; also by Ben 
Jonson in his Tale of a Tub, Act iii. sc. 5. 

3 The heathen oracles were said to have ceased at the Nativity. See 
Milton's Ode. 

4 Tom Po was a common name for a spectre. The word seems to be 
akin to bug in " bugbear ; " to the Dutch bauio, a spectre ; and to the "Welsh 
bo, a hobgoblin. One son of Odin was named Po or Bo. 

5 Grey illustrates this by the story of two male servants, one of whom 
alarmed the other, who was very apprehensive of the devil, by getting under 
the bed at night time and playing pranks ; but happening to make a natural 

explosion, the frightened man recovered himself, and cried out, "Oh ! oh! 



C^NTO 1.1 HTJDIBRAS. 317 

With that lie rous'd his drooping heart, 

And hastily cry'd out, "What art r — 1400 

A wretch, quoth he, whom want of grace 
Has brought to this unhappy place. 

I do believe thee, quoth the Knight ; 
Thus far I'm sure thou'rt in the right ; 
And know what 'tis that troubles thee, 1405 

Better than thou hast guess'd of me. 
Thou art some paltry, blackguard spright, 
Condemn'd to drudg'ry in the night ; 
Thou hast no work to do i' th' house, 
1ST or halfpenny to drop in shoes ; l 1410 

Without the raising of which sum 
Tou dare not be so troublesome 
To pinch the slatterns black and blue, 
For leaving you their work to do. 
This is your bus'ness, good Pug-Robin, 2 1415 

And your diversion dull dry bobbing, 

if thou art a f g devil, have at thee, I am not afraid ; " and therewith 

got up and thrashed him. 

1 One of the cm-rent superstitions of the olden time ahout fairies Avas, 
that if servant-maids, before going to bed, swept up their hearths clean, 
brightened the furniture, and left a pail full of clean water for bathing in, 
they would find money in their shoes ; if they left the house dirty they 
would be pinched in their sleep. Thus the old ballad of Robin Goodfellow, 
who perhaps was the sprite meant by Pug-Robin ; 

When house or hearth doth sluttish lie, 
I pinch the maids both black and blue : 
And from the bed, the bed-cloths I 
Pull off, and lay them nak'd to view. 
Again, speaking of fairies : 

Such sort of creatures as would bast ye 
A kitchen wench, for being nasty : 
But if she neatly scour her pewter, 
Give her the money that is due t' her. 
Every night before we go, 
"We drop a tester in her shoe. 

See Shakspeare, Midsummer Night's Dream, and Merry Wives of Windsor ; 
Percy's Eeliques ; and Keightley's Fairy Mythology. 

2 Pug-Robin, or Robin Goodfellow, was a kind of merry sprite, whose 
character and achievements are frequently recorded by the poets, particularly 
in the well-known lines of Shakspeare, Mids. Night's Dream, Act ii. sc. 
1. Pug is the same as Puck. Dry bobbing here means dry jesting. 



318 HUDIBEAS. [PAET III. 

T' entice fanatics in the dirt, 

And wash 'em clean in ditches for't ; 

Of which conceit you are so proud, 

At ev'ry jest you laugh aloud, 1420 

As now you would have done by me, 

But that I baiT'd your raillery. 

Sir, quoth the Voice, ye're no such sophy l 
As you would have the world judge of ye. 
If you design to weigh our talents 1425 

I' th' standard of your own false balance, 
Or think it possible to know 
Us ghosts, as well as we do you, 
"We who have been the everlasting 
Companions of your drubs and basting, 1430 

And never left you in contest, 
"With male or female, man or beast, 
But prov'd as true t' ye, and entire, 
In all adventures, as your Squire. 

Quoth he, That may be said as true, 1435 

By th' idlest pug of all your crew ; 
For none could have betray'd us worse 
Than those allies of ours and yours. 2 
But I have sent him for a token 
To your low-country Hogen-Mogen, 1440 

To whose infernal shores I hope 
He'll swing like skippers 3 in a rope : 
And if ye've been more just to me, 
As I am apt to think, than he, 

I am afraid it is as true 1445 

"What th' ill-affected say of you : 
Te've 'spous'd the Covenant and Cause 
By holding up your cloven paws. 4 

1 You are no such wise person, or sophister, from the Greek aoipog. 

2 Meaning the Independents, or Ralpho, whom he says he had sent to the 
infernal Hogen-Mogen (from the Dutch Hoogmogencle, high and mighty, 
or the devil,) supposing he would be hung. 

3 Skipper is the Dutch for the master of a sloop, generally a good 
climber. 

4 When persons took the Covenant, they attested their obligation to ob- 
serve its principles by lifting up their hands to heaven. Of this South 
says, satirically, " Holding up their hands was a sign that they were ready 
to strike." The Covenant here means the Solemn League and Covenant, 



CANTO I.] nUDIBKAS. 319 

Sir, quoth the Voice, 'tis true, I grant, 1 
"We made, and took the Covenant : l-iso 

But that no more concerns the Cause, 
Than other perj'ries do the laws, 
"Which, when they're prov'd in open court, 
"Wear wooden peccadillos for't : 2 

And that's the reason Cov'nanters 1455 

Hold 3 up their hands, like rogues at bars. 

I see, quoth Hudibras, from whence 
These scandals of the saints commence, 4 
That are hut natural effects 

Of Satan's malice, and his sects, 11 GO 

Those spider-saints, that hang by threads 
Spun out o' th' entrails of their heads. 

Sir, quoth the Yoice, that may as true 5 
And properly be said of you, 

"Whose talents may compare with either, 6 1465 

Or both the other put together : 
For all the Independents do, 
Is only what you forc'd 'em to ; 
Tou, who are not content alone 

With tricks to put the devil down, 1470 

But must have armies rais'd to back 
The Gospel-work you undertake ; 
As if artillery and edge-tools, 
Were th' only engines to save souls : 

framed by the Scots, and adopted by the English, ordered to be read in all 
churches, -when every person was bound to give his consent, by holding up 
His hand at the reading of it. 

1 Ealpho, the supposed sprite, allows that they, the devil and the Inde- 
pendents, had engaged in the Covenant ; but he insists that the violation 
of it was not at all prejudicial to the cause they had undertaken and for 
which it was framed. 

2 A peccadillo, or more correctly Piccadil, was a stiff collar or ruff worn 
round the neck and shoulders. Ludicrously it means the pillory. This 
collar came into fashion in the reign of James I., and is supposed to have 
given the name to Piccadilly. 

3 Some editions read "held up." 

4 That is, the scandalous reflections on the saints, such as charging the 
Covenant with perjury, and making the Covenanter no better than a rogue 
at the bar. 

5 Hudibras having been hard upon Satan and the Independents, the voice 
undertakes the defence of each, but first of the Independents. 

6 That is, either with the Independents or with the devil. 



320 HTTDIBEAS. [PAET III. 

"While he, poor devil, has no pow'r l 1475 

By force to run down and devour ; 

Has ne'er a Classis, cannot sentence 

To stools, or poundage of repentance ; 

Is ty'd up only to design, 

T' entice, and tempt, and undermine : 1480 

In which you all his arts outdo, 

And prove yourselves his betters too. 

Hence 'tis possessions do less evil 

Than mere temptations of the devil, 2 

Which, all the horrid'st actions done, 1485 

Are charg'd in courts of law upon ; 3 

Because, unless they 4 help the elf, 

He can do little of himself; 

And, therefore, where he's best possest 

Acts most against his interest ; 1490 

Surprises none but those who've priests 

To turn him out, and exorcists, 

Supply'd with spiritual provision, 

And magazines of ammunition ; 

With crosses, relics, crucifixes, 1495 

Beads, pictures, rosaries, and pixes ; 

The tools of working our salvation 

By mere mechanic operation : 

With holy water, like a sluice, 

To overflow all avenues : 150C 

But those who're utterly unarm'd, 

T' oppose his entrance, if he storm'd, 

1 He, that is, the Independent, has no power, having no classis, or spirit- 
ual jurisdiction, to distress us bv open and authorized vexations. Stools 
mean stools of repentance, on "which persons were compelled to stand and do 
penance for their sius. Poundage is the commutation of punishment for a 
sum of money. 

2 He argues that men who are influenced by the devil, and co-operate 
with him, commit greater wickedness than he is able to perpetrate by his 
own agency. We seldom hear, therefore, of his taking an entire possession. 
The persons who complain most of his doing so, are those who are well 
furnished with the means of exorcising and ejecting him, such as relics, 
crucifixes, beads, pictures, rosaries, &c. 

3 " Not having the fear of God before their eyes, but being led by the 
instigation of the devil," is the form of indictment for felony, murder, and 
other atrocious crimes. 

4 Some editions read " you help." 



CA>'TO I.] HUDIBKAS. 321 

He never offers to surprise, 

Altlio' his falsest enemies ; l 

But is content to be their drudge, 1505 

And on their errands glad to trudge : 

For where are all your forfeitures 

Intrusted in safe hands, but ours ? 

Who are but jailors of the holes 

And dungeons where you clap up souls ; 2 1510 

Like under-keepers, turn the keys, 

T' your mittimus anathemas, 

And never boggle to restore 

The members you deliver o'er 

Upon demand, with fairer justice, 1515 

Than all you Covenanting Trustees ; s 

Unless, to punish them the worse, 

Tou put them in the secular powers, 

And pass their souls, as some demise 

The same estate in mortgage twice : 4 1520 

When to a legal utlegation 

Tou turn your excommunication, 5 

And, for a groat unpaid that's due, 

Distrain on soul and body too. 6 

Thought he, 'tis no mean part of civil 1525 

State-prudence to cajole the devil, 
And not to handle him too rough, 
When h' has us in his cloven hoof. 

1 The enthusiasm of the Independents was something new in its kind, no f 
much allied to superstition. 

2 Keep those in hell whom you are pleased to send thither by excom 
munication, mittimus, or anathema : as jailors and turnkeys confine then 
prisoners. 

3 More honestly than the Presbyterians surrendered the estates which 
they held in trust for one another ; these trustees were generally Cove- 
nanters. See Part i. c. i. v. 76, and Part iii. c. ii. v. 55. 

4 This alludes to the case of a Mr Sherfield, who mortgaged his estate to half 
a dozen different people, having by a previous deed demised it for pious uses, 
sb that all lost their money. See Strafford's Letters, 1739, vol. i. p. 206. 

5 Tou call down the vengeance of the civil magistrate upon them, and 
in this second instance pass over, that is, take no notice of, their souls : the 
ecclesiastical courts can excommunicate, and then they apply to the civil 
court for an outlawry. Utlegation means outlawry. 

6 Seize the party by a writ de excommunicato capiendo. 

Y 



322 HUDIBEAS, [PAET III. 

'Tis true, quoth he, that intercourse 
Has pass'd between your friends and ours, 1530 

That, as you trust us, in our way, 
To raise your members, and to lay, 1 
"We send you others of our own, 
Denounc'd to hang themselves, or drown, 2 
Or, frighted with our oratory, 1535 

To leap down headlong many a story ; 
Have us'd all means to propagate 
Your mighty interests of state, 
Laid out our sp'ritual gifts to further 
Your great designs of rage and murther : 1540 

For if the saints are nam'd from blood, 
We onl' have made that title good ; 3 
And, if it were but in our power, 
We should not scruple to do more, 
And not be half a soul behind 1545 

Of all dissenters of mankind. 

Eight, quoth the Voice, and, as I scorn 
To be ungrateful, in return 
Of all those kind good offices, 

I'll free you out of this distress, 1550 

And set you down in safety, where 
It is no time to tell you here. 
The cock crows, 4 and the morn draws on, 
When 'tis decreed I must be gone ; 
And if I leave you here till day, 1555 

You'll find it hard to get away. 

With that the Spirit grop'd about 
To find th' enchanted hero out, 

1 Your friends and ours, that is, you devils and us fanatics: that as you 
trust us in our way, to raise you devils, and to lay them again when done 
with. Nash. 

2 It is probahle that the presbyterian doctrine of reprobation had driven 
some persons to suicide, as m the case of Alderman Hoyle, a member of the 
house. See Birkenhead's Paul's Church Yard. 

3 Assuming that sanctus is derived from sanguis, blood. — We fanatics 
of this island only have merited that title by spilling much blood. 

4 It was formerly a current superstition that when the cock crowed at 
break of day, spirits and fiends that walked by night were forced to return 
to their infernal prison. 



CA>-TO I.] HUDIBEAS. 323 

And try'd with haste to lift him up, 

But found his forlorn hope, his crup, 1 1560 

Unserviceable with kicks and blows, 

Eeceiv'd from harden'd-hearted foes. 

He thought to drag him by the heels, 

Like Gresham-carts, with legs for wheels ; 2 

But fear, that soonest cures those sores, 1565 

In danger of relapse to worse, 

Came in t' assist him with its aid, 

And up his sinking vessel weigh' d. 

No sooner was he fit to trudge, 

But both made ready to dislodge ; 1570 

The Spirit hors'd him like a sack, 

Upon the vehicle his back, 

And bore him headlong into th' hall, 

With some few rubs against the wall ; 

"Where, finding out the postern lock'd, 1575 

And th' avenues as strongly block 'd, 

H' attack'd the window, storm' d the glass, 

And in a moment gain'd the pass ; 

Thro' which he dragg'd the worsted soldier's 

Four-quarters out by th' head and shoulders, 1580 

And cautiously began to scout 

To find their fellow-cattle out ; 

Nor was it half a minute's quest, 

Ere he retriev'd the champion's beast, 

Ty'd to a pale, instead of rack, 1585 

But ne'er a saddle on his back, 

Nor pistols at the saddle-bow, 

Convey'd away, the Lord knows how. 

He thought it was no time to stay, 

And let the night too steal away ; 1590 

1 His back is called his forlorn hope, because that was generally exposed 
to danger, to save the rest of his body, intimating that he always turned his 
back on his enemies. 

2 Butler does not forget the Royal Society, who at that time held their 
meetings at Gresham College in Bishopsgate Street. In 1662, the scheme 
of a cart with legs instead of wheels was brought before this Society, and 
referred to the consideration of Mr Hooke. The inventor was Mr Potter. 
Mr Hooke was ordered to draw up a full description of this cart, which, 
together with the animadversions upon it, was to be entered in the books ol 
the Society. 

y 2 



324 HTTDIBBAS. [PA.ET III. 

But, in a trice, advanc'd the Knight 

Upon the hare ridge, holt upright, 

And, groping out for Ralpho's jade, 

He found the saddle too was stray' d, 

And in the place a lump of soap, 1595 

On which he speedily leap'd up ; 

And, turning to the gate the rein, 

He kick'd and cudgell'd on amain ; 

While Hudibras, with equal haste, 

On both sides laid about as fast, 1600 

And spurr'd, as jockies use, to break, 

Or paclders to secure, a neck : 1 

Where let us leave 'em for a time, 

And to their churches turn our rhyme • 

To hold forth their declining state, 1605 

Which now come near an even rate. 2 

1 Jockies endanger their necks by spurring their horses, and galloping 
very fast; and highwaymen, called paaders, from the Saxon paad, high- 
way, spur their horses to save their necks. 

2 The time now approached when the Presbyterians and Independents 
were to fall into equal disgrace, and resemble the doleful condition of the 
Knight and Squire. 




PART III. CANTO II. 




ARGUMENT. 



The Saints engage in fierce contests 
About their carnal interests, 
To share their sacrilegious preys 
According to their rates of grace ; 
Their various frenzies to reform, 
When Cromwell left them in a storm ; 
Till, in th' effige of Rumps, the rabble 
Burn all their grandees of the cabal. 

The two last conversations have unfolded the views of the confederate 
sects, and prepared the way for the husiness of the subsequent canto. 
Their differences will there be agitated by characters of higher consequence ; 
and their mutual reproaches will again enable the poet to expose the 
knavery and hypocrisy of each. This was the principal intent of the work. 
The fable was considered by him only as the vehicle of his satire. And 
perhaps when he published the First Part, he had no more determined what 
was to follow in the Second, than Tristram Shandy had on a like occasion. 
The fable itself, the bare outlines of which I conceive to be borrowed, 
mutatis mutandis, from Cervantes, seems here to be brought to a period. 
The next canto has the form of an episode. The last consists chiefly of 
two dialogues and two letters. Neither Knight nor Squire has any further 
adventures. Nash. 







PART III. CANTO II. 



[HE learned write, an insect breeze 
Is but a mongrel prince of bees, 2 
That falls before a storm on cows, 
And stings tbe founders of bis bouse ; 
Prom whose corrupted flesh that breed 5 
Of vermin did at first proceed. 3 

So, ere the storm of war broke out, 

Eeligion spawn'd a various rout 4 

Of petulant capricious sects, 

The maggots of corrupted texts, 5 10 

1 This canto being wholly unconnected with the story of Hudibras, would, 
in Mr Nash's opinion,have been better placed at the end ; indeed this arrange- 
ment has been adopted by Mr Towneley in his French translation. Its 
different character, and its want of connexion with the foregone, may be 
accounted for, by supposing it written on the spur of the occasion, and with 
a view to recommend the author to his friends at court, by an attack on the 
opposite faction, at a time when it was daily gaining ground and the secret 
views of Charles II. were more and more suspected and dreaded. A short time 
before the third part of this poem was published, Shaftesbury had ceased to 
be a minister, and had become a furious demagogue. But the canto describes 
the spirit of parties not long before the Restoration. One object of satire 
here is to refute and ridicule the plea of the Presbyterians, after the Restor- 
ation, of having been the principal instruments in bringing back the king. 

2 The classical theory of the generation of bees is here applied to the 
breese, or gadfly, which is said by Pliny (Nat. Hist. xi. 16) to be "a bee 
of larger size which chases the others :" hence it may fairly be styled a 
prince of bees, yet but a mongrel prince, because not truly a bee 

3 Assuming that they deposit their larvae in the flesh of cows. 

4 Case, in his thanksgiving sermon for the taking of Chester, told the 
Parliament, that no less than 180 errors and heresies were propagated in the 
city of London. 

5 The Independents, and sometimes the Presbyterians, have been charged 
with altering a text of Scripture, in order to authorize them to appoint their 
own ministers, substituting ye for toe in Acts vi. 3. " Therefore, brethren, 
look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost 
and wisdom, whom ye may appoint over this business, ' Mr Field is said 



CA>~TO II.] HUDIBEAS. 327 

That first run all religion down, 

And after ev'ry swarm, its own : 

For as the Persian Magi once l 

Upon their mothers got their sons, 

That were incapable t' enjoy 15 

That empire any other way ; 2 

So presbyter begot the other 3 

Upon the Good Old Cause, his mother, 

That bore them like the devil's dam, 4 

Whose son and husband are the same ; 20 

And yet no nat'ral tie of blood, 

2sbr int'rest for their common good, 

Could, when their profits interfer'd, 

Get quarter for each other's beard : 5 

For when they thriv'd they never fadg'd, 6 25 

But only by the ears engag'd ; 

to have printed ye instead of toe in several editions, and particularly in his 
beautiful folio edition of 1659, as well as his octavo of 1661 ; and, according to 
Grey, he was " the first printer of the forgery, and received £1500 for it." 
But this error had previously occuiTed in the Bible printed at Cambridge by 
Buck and Daniel, 1638. See Lowndes' Bibliographical Manual, by Bohn, 
page 187. 

1 It was about 521 years before Christ, that they first had the name of 
Magians, which signifies crop-eared ; it was given them by way of nick- 
name and contempt, because of the impostor (Smerdis) who was then cropt. 
Prideaux's Connection. Hence, perhaps, might come the proverb, " Who 
made you a conjurer and did not crop your ears." 

2 The poet cannot mean the Persian empire, which was only in the hands 
of the Magi for a few months, but the presidency of the Magi. Zoroaster, 
the first institutor of the sect, allowed of incestuous marriages to preserve 
the line without intermixture. He maintained the doctrine of a good and 
bad principle ; the former was worshipped under the emblem of fire, which 
they kept constantly burning. 

3 The Presbyterians first broke down the pale of order and discipline, 
and so made way for the Independents and every other sect. 

4 This is not the first time we have heard of the devil's mother. In 
Wolfii Memorabilia, is a quotation from Erasmus : " If you are the devil, I 
am his mother. " And in the Agamemnon of iEschylus, Cassandra, after 
loading Clytemnestra with every opprobrious name she can think of, calls 
her "mother of the devil." Larchcr, the editor of the French Hudibras, 
remarks in a note, that this passage alludes to the description of Sin and 
Death in the second book of Milton's Paradise Lost. 

5 When the Presbyterians prevailed, Calamy, being asked what he would 
do with the Anabaptists, Antinomians, and others, replied, that he would 
not meddle with their consciences, but only with their bodies and estates. 

6 That is, never agreed or united, from gefegen, Sax. See "Wright's 
Provincial Dictionary. 



328 HTJDIBRAS. [PART Til. 

Like dogs that snarl about a bone, 

And play together when they 've none; 1 

A s by their truest characters, 

Their constant actions, p^ainl' appears, 30 

Rebellion now began, fur l&ck 

Of zeal and plunder, to grow slack ; 

The Cause and Covenant to lessen, 

And Providence to b' out of season : 

For now there was no more to purchase 2 35 

O' th' king's revenue, and the churches', 

But all divided, shar'd, and gone, 

That us'd to urge the brethren on ; 

Which forc'd the stubborn' st for the cause 

To cross the cudgels to the laws, 3 40 

That what by breaking them they'd gain'd, 

By their support might be maintain'd ; 

Like thieves, that in a hemp-plot lie, 

Secur'd against the hue-and-cry. 4 

For Presbyter and Independent 45 

"Were now turn'd plaintiff and defendant ; 

Laid out their apostolic functions 

On carnal orders and Injunctions ; 

And all their precious gifts and graces 

On outlawries and scire facias ; 50 

At Michael's term had many a trial, 

Worse than the dragon and St Michael, 

Where thousands fell, in shape of fees, 

Into the bottomless abyss. 

For when, like bretheren and friends, 55 

They came to share their dividends, 5 

1 Butler here implies that while the Dissenters were struggling for the 
upper hand and had nothing to lose, they were united, but the moment 
they succeeded, the dominant party jealously excluded their former allies. 

3 Although the Ordinance which removed obstructions in the sale of the 
Royal Lands, was passed so early as 1649, it was not till 1659 that White- 
hall, Somerset House, and Hampton Court, were ordered to be sold. 

3 Cudgels across one another denote a challenge : to cross the cudgels to 
the laws, is to offer to fight in defence of them. 

4 Meaning a plantation of hemp, which being a thick cover, a rogue may 
lie concealed therein. " Thus," says Butler, " he shelters himself under the 
cover of the law, like a thief in a hemp-plat, and makes that secure him 
which was intended for his destruction." Remains, vol. ii. p. 384. 

5 "When the estates of the king and Church were ordered to be sold in 



CASTTO II. J HTTDIBBAS. 329 

Arid ev'ry partner to possess 

His church, and state joint-purchases, 

In which the ablest saint, and best, 

"Was nam'd in trust by all the rest, 60 

To pay their money, and instead 

Of ev'ry brother, pass the deed ; 

He strait converted all his gifts 

To pious frauds and holy shifts, 

And settled all the others' shares 66 

Upon his outward man and 's heirs ; 

Held all they claim' d as Forfeit Lands 

Deliver'd up into his hands, 

And pass'd upon his conscience 

By pre-entail of Providence ; 70 

Impeach' d the rest for reprobates, 

That had no titles to estates, 

But by their spiritual attaints 

Degraded from the right of saints. 

This b'ing reveal'd, they now begun 75 

"With law and conscience to fall on, 

And laid about as hot and brain-sick 

As th' utter barrister of Swanswick ; l 

Engag'd with money-bags, as bold 

As men with sand-bags did of old, 2 80 

1749, great arrears were due to the army : for the discharge of which some 
of the lands were allotted, and whole regiments joined together in the 
manner of a corporation. The distribution afterwards was productive of 
many law-suits, the person whose name was put in trust often claiming the 
whole, or a larger share than he was entitled to. See note at page 7. 

1 "William Prynne, already mentioned at page 30, was horn at Swanswick, 
in Somersetshire. The poet calls him hot and brain-sick, because he was a 
restless and turbulent man. He is called the utter (or outer) barrister by 
the court of Star-chamber, in the sentence ordering him to be discarded ; 
and afterwards he was voted again by the House of Commons to be restored 
to his place and practice as an utter barrister ; which signifies a pleader 
without the bar, or one-who is not king's counsel or serjeant. 

2 Bishop "Warburton says : ""When the combat was demanded in a legal 
way by knights and gentlemen, it was fought with sword and lance ; and 
when by yeomen, with sand-bags fastened to the end of a truncheon." 
"When tilts and tournaments were in fashion for men of knightly degree, 
men of low degree amused themselves with running at the Quintain, which 
was a beam with a wooden board at one end, and a sand-bag at the other, 
so fixed on a post, that when the board was smartly struck, it swung round 






330 HUDIBEAS. [PAET III. 

That brought the lawyers in more fees. 

Than all unsanctify'd trustees ; l 

Till he who had no more to show 

I' th' case, receiv'd the overthrow ; 

Or, both sides having had the worst, 85 

They parted as they met at first. 

Poor Presbyter was now reduc'd, 

Secluded, and cashier' d, and chous'd! 2 

Turn'd out, and excommunicate 

Prom all affairs of church and state, 9C 

Reform' d t' a reformado saint, 3 

And glad to turn itinerant, 4 

To stroll and teach from town to town, 

And those he had taught up, teach down, 5 

And make those Uses serve agen 6 91 

Against the New-enlighten'd men, 7 

As fit as when at first they were 

Reveal' d against the Cavalier ; 

Damn Anabaptist and fanatic, 

As pat as popish and prelatic ; ioc 



rapidly, and if the striker was not very nimble the sand-bag struck him a 
heavy blow. Judicial combats between common people were also fought 
with sand-bags fixed on shafts. See Henry VI., Part II. Act ii., where 
Horner and Peter are so equipped for their combat. 

1 The lawyers got more fees from the Presbyterians, or saints, who in 
general were trustees for the sequestered lands, than from all other trustees, 
who were unsanctified. Nash. 

2 "When Oliver Cromwell, with the army and the Independents, had got 
the upper hand, they retaliated on the Presbyterians by depriving them of 
all power and authority ; and before the king was brought to trial, the 
Presbyterian members were " purged" from the House. 

3 That is, a voluntary saint without pay or commission. 

4 Amongst the schemes of the day was the appointment of itinerant 
preachers, who were to be supported out of the lands of Deans and Chap- 
ters. "Walker's Hist, of Independency, Part ii. p. 156. 

5 Poor Presbyter, i. e. the Presbyterians were glad to teach down the 
Independents, whom as brethren and friends (v. 55) they had indiscrimin- 
ately taught up ; the unhinging doctrines of the Presbyterians having set 
up the Independents in direct opposition to themselves. Nash. 

6 The sermons of these times were divided into Doctrine and Use : and 
in the margin of them is often printed Use the first, Use the second, &c. 

7 The Presbyterians endeavoured to preach down the Independents 
by the very same doctrines these had used in preaching down the Bishops ; 
that is, by objecting to Ordination and Church government. 



CA.^TO II.] HUDIBRAS. 331 

And with as little variation, 

To serve for any sect i' th' nation. 

The Good Old Cause, 1 which some believe 

To be the dev'l that tempted Eve 

"With knowledge, and does still invite 105 

The world to mischief with new light, 

Had store of money in her purse, 

When he took her for bett'r or worse, 

But now was grown deform'd and poor, 

And fit to be turn'd out of door. 110 

The Independents, whose first station 
Was in the rear of Keformation, 
A mongrel kind of church-dragoons, 2 
That serv'd for horse and foot at once, 
And in the saddle of one steed 115 

The Saracen and Christian rid; 3 
Were free of ev'ry spiritual order, 
To preacb, and fight, and pray, and murder, 4 
No sooner got the start, to lurch 5 
Both disciplines of war and church, 120 

And providence enough to run 
The chief commanders of them down, 
But carry' d on the war against 
The common enemy o' th' saints, 
And in awhile prevail' d so far, 125 

To win of them the game of war, 
And be at liberty once more 
T' attack themselves as they'd before. 

1 This was the designation of the party purpose of those who first got up 
the Covenant and Protestation. 

- Many of the Independent officers, such as Cromwell, Ireton, Harrison, 
&c., used to pray and preach publicly. Cleveland uses the same term, 
" Kirk dragoons," in his Hue and Cry after Sir John Presbyter. 

3 The Templars were at first so poor that two knights rode on one 
horse ; Butler says the new order of Military Saints did so, but that one rider 
was a Saracen and the other a saint. Grey says in quoting Walker, that 
the Independents were a compound of Jew, Christian, and saint. 

4 To preach, has a reference to the Dominicans; to fight, to the knights 
of Malta : to pray, to the fathers of Oratory ; to murther, to the Jesuits. 
But the Independents assumed to themselves the privilege of every order : 
they preached, fought, prayed, and murdered. 

5 That is, to swallow up, see Skinner and Junius. A lurcher is a glut- 
ton. See Wright's Provincial Dictionary. 



332 HtTDIBEAS. [PAET ITT. 

For now there was no foe in arms 
T' unite their factions with alarms, 130 

But all reduc'd and overcome, 
Except their worst, themselves at home, 
"Who 'd compass'd all they pray'd, and swore, 
And fought, and preach'd, and plunder'd for, 
Subdu'd the nation, church and state, 135 

And all things but their laws and hate -, 1 
But when they came to treat and transact, 
And share the spoil of all they 'd ransackt, 
To botch up what they 'd torn and rent, 
Religion and the government, 140 

They met no sooner, but prepar'd 
To pull down all the war had spar'd ; 
Agreed in nothing, but t' aboHsh, 
Subvert, extirpate, and demolish : 
For knaves and fools b'ing near of kin, 145 

As Dutch boors are t' a sooterkin, 2 
Both parties join'd to do their best 
To damn the public interest ; 
And herded only in consults, 3 

To put by one another's bolts ; 150 

T' outcant the Babylonian labourers, 
At all their dialects of jabberers, 
And tug at both ends of the saw, 
To tear down government and law. 
For as two cheats, that play one game, 155 

Are both defeated of their aim ; 4 
So those who play a game of state, 
And only cavil in debate, 



1 That is, the laws of the land, and hatred of the people. 

2 A reflection upon the Dutch women, for their use of portahle stoves, 
which they carry by a string, and on seating themselves generally put it 
under their petticoats; whence they are humorously said to engender 
sooterkins with their children. Howel, in his letters, describes them as 
"likest a bat of any creature," and Cleveland says, "not unlike a rat." 

s That is, both parties were intimately united together. 

4 For as when two cheats, equally masters of the very same tricks, are 
by that circumstance mutually defeated of their aim, namely, to impose 
upon each other, so those well matched tricksters, who play with state 
affairs, and only cavil at one another's schemes, ever counteract each 
other. 



BANTO II.] IITJDIBEAS. 333 

Altho' there's nothing lost nor won, 

The public bus'ness is undone, i6o 

"Which still the longer 'tis in doing, 

Becomes the surer way to ruin. 

This when the Royalists perceiv'd, 1 
Who to their faith as firmly cleav'd, 
And own'd the right they had paid down 165 

So dearly for, the church and crown, 
Th' united constanter, and sided 
The more, the more their foes divided : 
For tho' outnumber' d, overthrown, 
And by the fate of war run down, 170 

Their duty never was defeated, 
Nor from* their oaths and faith retreated ; 
For loyalty is still the same, 
Whether it win or lose the game ; 
True as the dial to the sun, 175 

Altho' it be not shin'd upon. 2 
But when these bretheren 3 in evil, 
Their adversaries, and the devil, 
Began once more to show them play, 
And hopes, at least, to have a day, 1 80 

They rally'd in parade of woods, 
And unfrequented solitudes ; 
Conv&n'd at midnight in outhouses, 
T' appoint new-rising rendezvouses, 
And, with a pertinacy unmatch'd 185 

For new recruits 4 of danger watch' d. 
No sooner was one blow diverted, 
But up another party started, 
And as if Nature too, in haste 
To furnish out supplies as fast, 190 

1 This encomium on the Koyalists, their prudence, and suffering fidelity 
has been generally admired. 

2 As the dial is invariable, and always true to the sun whenever its rays 
emerge, however its lustre may be sometimes obcurcd by passing clouds 
so true loyalty is always ready to serve its king and country, thougl 
often under the pressure of affliction and distress. 

3 The poet, to serve his metre, sometimes lengthens and sometimes con- 
tracts his words, thus bretheren, lightening, oppugne, sarcasmous, affairs, 
bungleing, sprinkleing, benigne. 

4 R.ecruits, that is, Irish volunteers ready to serve the king's cause. 






334 HUDIBEAS. [PAET III. 

Before her time had turn'd destruction 

T' a new and numerous production ; ' 

No sooner those were overcome, 

But up rose others in their room, 

That, like the Christian faith, increas'd 195 

The more, the more they were suppress' d: 

Whom neither chains, nor transportation, 

Proscription, sale, nor confiscation, 

Nor all the desperate events 

Of former tried experiments, 200 

Nor wounds, could terrify, nor mangling, 

To leave off loyalty and dangling, 

Nor death, with all his bones, affright 

From vent'ring to maintain the right, 

Erom staking life and fortune down 205 

'Gainst all together, 2 for the crown: 

But kept the title of their cause 

From forfeiture, like claims in laws ; 

And prov'd no prosp'rous usurpation 

Can ever settle on the nation ; 210 

Until, in spite of force and treason, 

They put their loy'lty in possession ; 

And, by their constancy and faith, 

Destroy'd the mighty men of Gratn. 

Toss'd in a furious hurricane, 215 

Did Oliver give up his reign, 3 

1 The succession of Loyalists was so quick, that they seemed to be perish- 
ing, and others supplying their places, before the periods usual in nature ; 
all which is expressed by an allusion to equivocal generation. 

2 That is, all of them together, namely, the several factions, their ad- 
versaries, and the devil. See v. 178. 

3 The Monday before the death of Oliver, August 30th, 1658, was the 
most windy day that had happened for twenty years. Dennis Bond, a 
member of the Long Parliament, and one of the king's judges, died on this 
day ; wherefore, when Oliver likewise went away in a storm the Friday 
following, it was said, the devil came in the first wind to fetch him, but 
finding him not quite ready, took Bond for his appearance. Dryden, 
Waller, and other poets have verses on the subject : 

In storms as loud as his immortal fame ; 

and Godolphin : 

In storms as loud as was his crying sin. 



CANTO II.] 



nUDIEEAS. 



335 



And was believ'cl, as well by saints 
As moral men and miscreants, 1 
To founder in tbe Stygian ferry, 
Until he was retriev'd by Sterry, 2 
Who, in a false erroneous dream, 3 
Mistook tbe New Jerusalem, 
Profanely, for tb' apocryphal 
False heav'n at the end o' th' hall ; 
"Whither it was decreed by fate 
His precious reliques to translate. 
So Eomulus was seen before 
13' as orthodox a senator, 4 
Prom whose divine illumination 
He stole the pagan revelation. 

Next him his son, and heir apparent 
Succeeded, tho' a lame vicegerent ; 5 
Who first laid by the Parliament, 
The only crutch on which he leant, 



1 Some editions read mortal, but not with so much meaning or wit. The 
Independents called themselves the saints : the Cavaliers and the Church 
of England were distinguished into two sorts ; the immoral and wicked 
they called miscreants ; those that were of sober and of good conversation, 
they called moral men ; yet, because these last did not maintain the doctrine 
of absolute predestination and justification by faith only, but insisted upon 
the necessity of good works, they accounted them no better than moral 
heatheas. By this opposition in terms between moral men and saints, 
the poet seems to insinuate, that the pretended saints were not men of 
morals. 

3 The king's party of course maintained that Oliver Cromwell was gone 
to the devil ; but Sterry, one of Oliver's chaplains, assured the world of his 
ascent into heaven, and that he ■would be of more use to them there than 
he had been in his life-time. 

* Sterry dreamed that Oliver was to be placed in heaven, which he foolishly 
imagined to be the true and real heaven above ; but it happened to be the 
false carnal heaven at the end of Westminster Hall, where his head was 
fixed after the Restoration. There were, at that time, three taverns abut- 
ting on Westminster Hall, one called Heaven, another Hell, and the 
third Purgatory, near to the former of which Oliver's head was fixed. 

4 " Eomulus, the first Roman kins:, being suddenly missed, and the 
people in trouble for the loss of him, Julius Proculus made a speech, where- 
in he told them that he saw Romulus that morning come down from 
heaven ; that he gave him certain things in charge to tell them, and then 
he saw him mount up to heaven again." Livy's Roman Hist. vol. i. b. i. 

5 Richard Cromwell, the eldest son of Oliver, succeeded him in the pro- 
tectorship ; but had neither capacity nor courage sufficient for his position. 






336 HTTDIBRAS. [PABT III. 

And then sunk underneath the state, 235 

That rode him above horseman's weight. 1 
And now the saints began their reign, 
For which they 'd yearn' d so long in vain, 2 
And felt such bowel-hankerings, 

To see an empire, all of kings, 3 240 

Deliver' d from th Egyptian awe 
Of justice, government, and law, 4 
And free t' erect what spiritual cantons 
Should be reveal'd, or gospel Hans-Towns. 5 
To edify upon the rums 245 

Of John of Ley den's old out-_ 
"Who for a weather-cock hung up 
Upon their mother-church's top, 
Was made a type, by Providence, 
Of all their revelations since, 250 

And now fulfill' d by his successors, 
Who equally mistook their measures ; 
For when they came to shape the Model, 
JS"ot one could fit another's noddle ; 
But found their Light and Gifts more wide 255 

From fadging, than th' unsanctify'd, 
While ev'ry individual brother 
Strove hand to fist against another, 

1 See Part i. Canto i. 1. 925, where he rides the state ; but here the state 
rides him. 

2 A sneer at the Committee of Safety. See Clarendon, vol. iii. b. xvi. 
p. 544, and Baxter's Life, p. 74. 

3 They founded their hopes on Revelation i. 6, and v. 10. 

4 Some sectaries thought that all law proceedings should be abolished, 
all law books burnt, and that the law of the Lord Jesus should be received 
alone. 

5 Alluding to the republics of Switzerland, and the G-erman Hans-Towns, 
Hamburgh, Altona, &c. 

6 John of Leyden, a tailor, who proclaimed himself a prophet and king 
of the universe, was the ringleader of the Anabaptists of Munster, where 
they proclaimed a community both of goods and women. This New Jeru- 
salem, as they had named it, was retaken, after a long siege, by its bishop 
and sovereign, Count Waldeck ; and John of Leyden and two of his asso- 
ciates (Knipperdollinck and Krechting) were enclosed in iron cages and 
carried throughout Germany for six months, after which they were suspend- 
ed in an iron cage, and starved to death, on the highest tower of the city. 
This happened about the year 1536. See Menzei's History of Germany, 
vol. ii. p. 256. 



CA^TO II.] HTJDIBRAS. 337 

And still the maddest, and most crackt, 

Were found the busiest to transact ; 260 

For tho' most hands dispatch apace, 

And make light work, the proverb says, 

Tet many diffrent intellects 

Are found t' have contrary effects ; 

And many heads t' obstruct intrigues, 265 

As slowest insects have most legs. 

Some were for setting up a king, 
But all the ^est for no such thing, 
Unless King Jesus : l others tamper'd 
For Fleetwood, Desborough, and Lambert ; 2 270 

Some for the Rump, and some more crafty, 
For Agitators, and the Safety ; 3 
Some for the Grospel, and massacres 
Of spiritual affidavit-makers, 4 

1 " The Fifth Monarchy Men," as Bishop Burnet says, " seemed daily to 
expect the appearance of Christ." Carew, one of the king's judges, would 
not plead to his indictment when brought to trial, till he had entered a 
salvo for the jurisdiction of Jesus Christ : " saving to our Lord Jesus Christ 
his right to the government of these kingdoms." 

2 Fleetwood was son-in-law to Cromwell, having married Ireton's widow. 
He was made lord deputy of Ireland, and lieutenant-general of the army. 
Desborough married one of Cromwell's sisters, and became a colonel, and 
general at sea. Lambert was the person who, according to Ludlow, was 
always kept in expectation by Cromwell of succeeding him, and was indeed 
the best qualified for it. 

3 In May, 1659, the Council of Officers, with Fleetwood as. their president, 
resolved upon restoring the Long Parliament, which having, by deaths, ex- 
clusions, and expulsions, been reduced to a small remnant, was called the 
Rump. In 1647, when the Parliament began to talk of disbanding the 
army, a military council was set up, consisting of the chief officers and de- 
puties from the inferior officers and common soldiers, to consult on the in- 
terests of the army. These were called Adjutators, and the chief manage- 
ment of affairs seemed to be for some time in their hands. The Committee 
of Safety, consisting of the officers of the army and some of the members of 
the Pump Parliament, was formed in 1659, to provide for the safety of the 
kingdom. 

4 Some were for abolishing all laws but what were expressed in the words 
of the Gospel ; for destroying all magistracy and government, and for ex- 
tirpating those who should endeavour to uphold it ; and of these Whitelock 
alleges that he acted as a member of the Committee of Safety, because so 
many were for abolishing all order that the nation was like to run into the 
utmost confusion. The Adjutators wished to destroy all records, and the 
courts of justice. 



338 HUDIBEAS. [PAET III. 

That swore to any human regence 275 

Oaths of suprem'cy and allegiance ; 

Yea, tho' the ahlest swearing saint, 

That vouch'd the Bulls o' th' Covenant : 

Others for pulling down th' high places 

Of Synods and Provincial classes, 1 280 

That us'd to make such hostile inroads 

Upon the saints, like bloody Nimrods : 

Some for fulfilling prophecies, 2 

'And th' extirpation of th' excise ; 

And some against th' Egyptian bondage 285 

Of holidays, and paying poundage : 3 

Some for the cutting down of groves, 4 

And rectifying bakers' loaves ; 

And some for finding out expedients 

Against the slav'ry of obedience : 290 

Some were for Gospel-ministers, 

And some for Red-coat seculars, 5 

As men most fit t' hold forth the word, 

And wield the one and th' other sword : 6 

Some were for carrying on the work 295 

Against the Pope, and some the Turk : 

Some for engaging to suppress 

The camisad' of surplices, 7 

1 They wished to see an end of the Presbyterian hierarchy. 

2 "That is, perhaps, for taking arms against the Pope, or Spain, as the head- 
quarters of Popery. 

3 The festivals or holy days of the Church had been abolished in 1647. 
The taxes imposed by the Parliament were numerous and heavy : poundage 
was a rate levied, according to assessment, on all personal property. 

4 That is, for destroying the churches, which they regarded as built ori- 
ginally for purposes of idolatry and superstition. It is well known that 
groves were anciently made use of as places of worship. The rows of clus- 
tered pillars in our Gothic cathedrals, branching out and meeting at top in 
long drawn arches, are supposed to have been suggested by the venerable 
groves of our ancestors. 

5 Some petitioned for the continuance and maintenance of the regular 
clergy ministry ; and others thought that laymen, and even soldiers, who 
were nicknamed " Church dragoons," might preach the word, as some of 
them did, particularly Cromwell and Ireton. 

6 " The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." Ephesians vi. 17. 

7 Some sectaries had a violent aversion to the surplice, which they called 
a rag of Popery. Cami&ado is an expedition by night, in which the soldiers 
sometimes wear their shirts, called a camisade (from the Greek Kafiiaiov, 



CANTO II.] 



339 



That Gifts and Dispensations hinder' A, 

And turn'd to tli' outward man the inward ; l 

More proper for the cloudy night 

Of Popery than gospel-light : 

Others were for abolishing 

That tool of matrimony, a ring, 2 

AYith- which th' unsanctify'd bridegroom 

Is marry' d only to a thumb, 3 

As wise as ringing of a pig, 

That us'd to break up ground, and dig ; 

The bride to nothing but her " will," 4 

That nulls the after-marriage still : 



Latin camisia, a surplice), over their clothes, that they may be distinguished 
by their comrades. 

1 Transferred the purity which should remain in the heart to the vest- 
ment on the back. 

2 Persons contracting matrimony were to publish their intentions in the 
next town, on three market days, and afterwards the contract was to be 
certified by a justice of the peace : no ring was used, as in the new Marriage 
Law. 

3 The word thumb is used for the sake of rhyme, the ring being put 
by the bridegroom upon the fourth finger of the woman's left hand: 
and something more may be meant than meets the ear, as the following 
extract from No. 614 of the Spectator seems to intimate : " Before I speak 
of widows, I cannot but observe one thing, which I do not know how 
to account for ; a widow is always more sought after than an old maid of 
the same age. It is common enough among ordinary people for a stale 
virgin to set up a shop in a place where she is not known ; where the large 
thumb ri?ig, supposed to be given her by her husband, quickly recommends 
her to some wealthy neighbour, who takes a liking to the jolly widow that 
would have overlooked the venerable spinster." Falstaff says : 

" I could have crept into any alderman's tMimb ring." 

I. Henry IV., Act ii. sc. 4. 

4 Mr Warburton thinks this an equivoque, alluding to the response which 
the bride makes in the marriage ceremony — "I will." But the poet may 
imply that a woman binds herself to nothing but her own will, for he else- 
where says : 

The souls of women are so small, 
That some believe th' have none at all ; 
Or, if they have, like cripples, still, 
They've but one faculty, the will. 

Genuine Kemains, vol. i. p. 246. 
z 2 



340 HUDIBEAS. [PART III. 

Some were for th' utter extirpation 

Of linsey-woolsey in the nation ; l 

And some against all idolizing 

The cross in shop-books, or baptizing; 2 

Others to make all things recant 315 

The Christian or sirname of Saint, 3 

And force all churches, streets, and towns, 

The holy title to renounce ; 

Some 'gainst a third estate of souls, 

And bringing down the price of coals ; 4 320 

Some for abolishing black-pudding, 

And eating nothing with the blood in, 5 

To abrogate them roots and branches ; 6 

While others were for eating haunches 

Of warriors, and now and then, 325 

The flesh of kings and mighty men ; 

1 Were for Judaizing. The Jewish law forbids the use of a garment made 
of linen and woollen. Lev. xix. 19. 

2 The Presbyterians thought it superstitious and Popish to use the sign 
of the cross in baptism ; Butler satirizes that notion by representing them 
as regarding it idolatrous for tradesmen to make a cross in their books, as 
a sign of payment. 

3 Streets, parishes, churches, public foundations, and even the apostles 
themselves, were unsainted for some years preceding the Eestoration, so that 
St Paul's was necessarily called Paul's, St Ann's, Ann's, &c. See the Spec- 
tator, No. 125. 

4 The first line may allude to the doctrine of the intermediate state, in 
which some supposed the soul to continue from the time of its leaving the 
body to the resurrection ; or else it may allude to the Popish doctrine of 
purgatory. The former subject was warmly discussed about this time. The 
exorbitant price of coals was then loudly complained of. Sir Arthur Hazel- 
rigg laid a tax of four shillings a chaldron upon Newcastle coals, when he 
was governor there. Many petitions were presented against the tax ; and 
various schemes proposed for reducing the price of them. Shakspeare says : 

A pair of tribunes that have sack'd fair Eome . 

To make coals cheap. Coriolanus, Act v. sc. 1. 

5 The Judaizing sect, who were for introducing Jewish customs. 

6 Clarendon mentions a set of levellers, who were called root and brancli 
men, in opposition to others who were of more moderate principles. To 
abrogate, that is, that they might utterly abrogate or renounce everything 
that had blood, while others were for eating haunches, alluding to Eevela- 
tion xix. 18, "That ye might eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of 



CAFTO II.] HUDIBEAS. 341 

And some for breaking of their bones 

With rods of iron, 1 by Secret ones ; 2 

For thrashing mountains, 3 and with spells 

For hallowing carriers' packs and bells ; 4 330 

Things that the legend never heard of, 

But made the -wicked sore afeard of. 5 

The quacks of government, 6 who sate 
At th' unregarded helm of state, 
And understood this wild confusion 335 

Of fatal madness and delusion, 
Must, sooner than a prodigy, 
Portend destruction to be nigh, 
Consider' d timely how t' withdraw, 
And save their wind-pipes from the law ; 340 

For one rencounter at the bar 
Was worse than all they'd 'scap'd in war ; 
And therefore met in consultation 
To cant and quack upon the nation ; 
Not for the sickly patient's sake, 315 

Nor what to give, but what to take ; 
To feel the pulses of their fees, 
More wise than fumbling artei'ies ; 
Prolong the snuff of life in pain, 
And from the grave recover— gain. 350 

captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them 
that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, hoth free and bond, both small 
and great." 

1 Ridiculing the practice, so common in those days, of expressing every 
sentiment in terms of Scripture. He alludes perhaps to Psalm ii. 9, Isaiah 
xli. 15, and Revelation xix. 15. 

2 The 83rd Psalm and 3rd verse is thus translated in their favourite 
Genevan text : " And taken counsel against thy secret ones." See this ex- 
pression used v. 681, 697, and 706 of this canto. 

3 A sneer at the cant of the Fifth Monarchy Men, for their misapplica- 
tion of the text Isaiah xli. 15. 

4 Zachariah xiv. 20. 

5 Things which the Scriptures never intended, but which the wicked, that 
is, the warriors, kings, and mighty men, were afraid of. 

6 These were Hollis, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Grimstone, Annesley, Man- 
chester, Roberts, and others ; who perceiving that Richard Cromwell was 
unable to conduct the government, and that the various schemers, who daily 
started up, would divide the party, and facilitate the restoration of the royal 
family, thought it prudent to take care of themselves, and secure their own 
interests with as much haste as possible. 



342 HUDIBBAS. [PABT III. 

'Mong these there was a politician, 
With more heads than a beast in vision, 1 
/ And more intrigues in every one 
Than all the whores of Babylon ; 
So politic, as if one eye 355 

Upon the other were a spy, 2 
That to trepan the one to think 
The other blind, both strove to blink ; 
And in his dark pragmatic way, 
As busy as a child at play. 360 

He 'ad seen three governments run down, 3 
And had a hand in ev'ry one ; 
"Was for 'em, and against 'em all, 4 
But barb'rous when they came to fall : 
.For by trepanning th' old to ruin, 365 

He made his hit' rest with the new one ; 
Play'd true and faithful, tho' against 
His conscience, and was still advanc'd : 

1 Alluding to Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury, 
mentioned in the last note. From an absurd defamation that he had the 
vanity to expect to be chosen king of Poland, he was by many called Tapsky, 
and by others, on account of his general conduct, he was nicknamed Shiftes- 
bury. But whatever the shafts levelled at him by the wits of the time, 
it must never be forgotten that he carried the Habeas Corpus Act through 
Parliament. 

2 Lord Shaftesbury had weak eyes, and squinted. 

3 Those of the King, the Parliament, and the Protector. First he was 
high sheriff of Dorsetshire, governor of Weymouth, and raised some forces 
for the king's service. Next he joined the Parliament, took the Covenant, 
and was made colonel of a regiment of horse. Afterwards he was a very 
busy person in setting up Cromwell to be lord protector ; and then again 
was quite as active in deposing Richard, and restoring the Rump. Bishop 
Burnet says of him, that he was not ashamed to reckon up the many turns 
he had made, and valued himself upon effecting them at the properest sea- 
son, and in the best manner. But the most powerful picture of him is that 
drawn by Dryden, in his Absalom and Achitophel. 

For close designs and crooked counsels fit, 
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit ; 
Restless, unfix' d in principles and place, 
In power unpleas'd, impatient of disgrace ; 
In friendship false, implacable in hate, 
Resolv'd to ruin or to rule the state. 

4 Grey says, "for the shameless duplicity of Shaftesbury, see the interest- 
ing memoirs of Col. Hutchinson, by his widow." 



CA.>"TO II.] HTTDIBBAS. 343 

For by the witchcraft of rebellion 

Transform' d t' a feeble state-camelion, 1 370 

By giving aim from side to side, 

He never fail'd to save his tide, 

But got the start of ev'ry state, 

And at a change, ne'er came too late ; 

Could turn his word, and oath, and faith, 375 

As many ways as in a lathe ; 

By turning, wriggle, like a screw, 

Int' highest trust, and out, for new : 

For when he'd happily incurr'd, 

Instead of hemp, to be preferr'd, 380 

And pass'd upon a government, 2 

He play'd his trick, and out he went ; 

But being out, and out of hopes 

To mount his ladder, more, of ropes, 3 

Would strive to raise himself upon 385 

The public ruin, and his own ; 

So little did he understand 

The desp'rate feats he took in hand, 

For when he 'ad got hhnself a name 

For frauds and tricks he spoil'd his game ; 390 

Had forc'd his neck into a noose, 

To show his play at fast and loose ; 4 

And, when he c'hanc'd t' escape, mistook, 

For art and subtlety, his luck. 

So right his judgment was cut fit, 395 

And made a tally to his wit, 

And both together most profound 

At deeds of darkness under-ground ; 

! The camelion is said to assume the colour of the nearest object. 

2 That is, passed himself upon the government. 

3 It was in clandestine designs, such as house-breaking and the like, that 
rope-ladders were chiefly used in our poet's time. 

4 Fast and loose, called also Pricking at the belt, or girdle, or garter, 
a cheating game still in vogue among gypsies and trampers at fairs. A 
leathern belt or garter is coiled up in intricate folds, but with all the appear- 
ance of having an ordinary centre, and then placed upon a table. The object 
of the player is to prick the centre fold with a skewer, so as to hold fast the 
belt, but the trickster takes hold of the ends, which are double, and draws 
the whole away. The game is now commonly played with a piece of list, 
and called Pricking at the garter. Shakspeare alludes to it in Antony and 
Cleopatra, Act iv. sc. 10, and in Love's Labour Lost, Act iii. sc. 1. 



344 HTJDIBEAS. [PA.BT III. 

As tli' earth is easiest undermin'd, 

By vermin impotent and blind. 1 400 

By all these arts, and many more, 
He'd practis'd long and much before, 
Our state-artificer foresaw 
"Which way the world began to draw : 
For as old sinners have all points 405 

O' th' compass in their bones and joints, 
Can by their pangs and aches find 
All turns and changes of the wind, 
And better than by Napier's bones, 2 
Peel in their own the age of moons ; 410 

So guilty sinners, in a state, 
Can by their crimes prognosticate, 
And in their consciences feel pain 
Some days before a show'r of rain : 
He therefore wisely cast about 415 

All ways he could t' ensure his throat, 
And hither came, t' observe and smoke 
What courses other riskers took, 
And to the utmost do his best 
To save himself, and hang the rest. 420 

To match this saint there was another, 
As busy and perverse a brother, 3 

1 The poet probably means earthworms, which are still more impotent 
and blind than moles. 

2 See "Napier's bones" explained at page 257. 

3 It is supposed that this character is intended for Colonel John Lilburn, 
whose repugnance to all, especially regal, authority, manifested itself in 
whatever shape it appeared, whether Monarchy or Protectorate. He had 
been severely censured in the Star-chamber for dispersing seditious 
pamphlets, and on that account was afterwards rewarded by the Parliament, 
and preferred by Cromwell. But when Cromwell was made Protector, 
Lilburn forsook him, and afterwards writing and speaking vehemently was 
arraigned of treason. He was an uncompromising leveller, and strong 
opponent of all that was uppermost ; a man of such an inveterate spirit of 
contradiction, that it was commonly said of him, if the world were emptied 
of all but himself, John would be against Lilburn, and Lilburn against John ; 
which part of his character gave occasion to the following lines at his death : 

Is John departed, and is Lilburn gone ? 
Farewell to both, to Lilburn and to John. 
Yet being dead, take this advice from me, 
Let them not both in one grave buried be ; 
Lay Jobn here, and Lilburn thereabout, 
For if they both should meet they would fall out. 



CASTTO IT.] HTJDIBBAS. 345 

An haberdasher of small wares l 

In politics and state affairs ; 

More Jew than Kabb' Achithophel, 2 425 

And better gifted to rebel ; 

For when h' had taught his tribe to 'spouse 

The Cause, aloft upon one house, 

He scorn'd to set his own in order, 

But try'd' another, and went further ; 430 

So sullenly addicted still 

To 's only principle, his will, 

That whatsoe'er it chanc'd to prove, 

No force of argument could move, 

Nor law, nor cavalcade of Ho'born, 3 435 

Could render half a grain less stubborn ; 

For he at any time would hang, 

For th' opportunity t' harangue ; 

And rather on a gibbet dangle, 

Than miss his dear delight, to wrangle ; 440 

In which his parts were so accomplish'd, 

That, right or wrong, he ne'er was non-plust : 

But still his tongue ran on, the less 

Of weight it bore, with greater ease ; 

And, with its everlasting clack, 445 

Set all men's ears upon the rack : 

No sooner could a hint appear, 

But up he started to picqueer, 4 

And made the stoutest yield to mercy, 

"When he engag'd in controversy ; 450 

Not by the force of carnal reason, 

But indefatigable teazing ; 

"With vollies of eternal babble, 

And clamour, more unanswerable : 

1 Lilburn had been bred a tradesman : Clarendon says a bookbinder, but 
Wood makes him a packer. 

2 Achithophel was one of David's counsellors who joined the rebellious 
Absalom, and assisted him with very artful advice ; but hanged himself 
when it was not implicitly followed. 2 Samuel xvii. 23. 

3 "When criminals were executed at Tyburn, they were generally con- 
veyed in carts, by the sheriff and his attendants on horseback, from New- 
gate, along Holborn, and Oxford-street. 

4 A military term, which signifies to skirmish. 



346 HUDIBEAS. [PAET III 

For tho' his topics, frail and weak, 455 

Cou'd ne'er amount above a freak, 

He still maintain' d 'em like his faults, 

Against the desp'ratest assaults ; 

And back'd their feeble want of sense, 

"With greater heat and confidence : x 460 

As bones of Hectors, when they differ, 

The more they 're cudgell'd, grow the stiffer. 2 

Tet when his profit moderated, 3 

The fury of his heat abated ; 

For nothing but his interest 465 

Could lay his devil of contest : 

It was his choice, or chance, or curse, 

T' espouse the Cause for better or worse, 

And with his worldly goods and wit, 

And soul and body, worshipp'd it : 4 470 

But when he found the sullen trapes 

Possess' d with th' devil, worms, and claps ; 

The Trojan mare, in foal with Greeks, 5 

Not half so full of jadish tricks, 

Tho' squeamish in her outward woman, 475 

As loose and rampant as Doll Common ; 6 

He still resolv'd to mend the matter, 

T' adhere and cleave the obstinater ; 

And still the skittisher and looser 

Her freaks appeared, to sit the closer ; 480 

For fools are stubborn in their way, 

As coins are harden' d by th' allay : 7 

1 When Lilburn was arraigned for treason against Cromwell, he pleaded 
at his trial that no treason could be committed against such a government, 
and what he had done was in defence of the liberties of his country. 

2 A pun upon the word stiffer. 

s That is, swayed and governed him. 

4 Alluding to the words in the office of matrimony : " With my body I 
thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow." 

5 Alluding to the stratagem of the Wooden Horse at the siege of Troy. 
See Virgil's JEneid, Book II. 

6 A prostitute in Ben Jonson's play of The Alchymist. 

7 Allay and alloy were in Butler's time used indifferently, although now 
employed in an opposite sense. The more copper a silver coin contains, the 
harder it is ; gold coins contain two parts, in every twenty-four, of alloy. , 



CA^TO II.] HUDIBRA9. 347 

And obstinacy's ne'er so stiff. 
As when 'tis in a -wrong belief. 1 

These two, with others, being met, 2 485 

And close in consultation set, 
After a discontented pause, 
And not without sufficient cause, 
The orator we mention'd late, 

Less troubled with the pangs of state, 490 

Than with his own impatience, 
To give himself first audience, 
After he had awhile look'd wise, 
At last broke silence, and the ice. 

Quoth he, There's nothing makes me doubt 495 
Our last Outgoings 3 brought about, 
More than to see the characters 
Of real Jealousies and Eears 
JSTot feign' d, as once, but sadly horrid, 4 
Scor'd upon ev'ry member's forehead ; 600 

Who, 'cause the clouds are drawn together, 
And threaten sudden change of weather, 
Feels pangs and aches of state-turns, 
And revolutions in their corns ; • 

1 The same sentiment is differently expressed in the Eemains, vol. i. 
page 1S1 : 

For as implicit faith is far more stiff, 

Than that which understands its own belief; 

So those that think, and do but think they know, 

Are far more obstinate than those that do : 

And more averse, than if they'd ne'er been taught 

A wrong way, to a right one to be brought. 

* A cabal met at Whitehall, at the same time that General Monk dined 
with the city of London. 

3 Outgoings and workings-out are among the cant terms used by Sect- 
aries, referred to in a note at page 3. " The Nonconformist" (says But- 
ler, in his Remains) " does not care to have anything founded on right, but 
left at large to the dispensation and outgoings of Providence." 

1 Not feigned and pretended as formerly, in the beginning of the Parlia- 
ment, when they stirred up the people against the king, by forging letters, 
suborning witnesses, and making an outcry of strange plots being carried on, 
and horrible dangers being at hand. For instance, the people were in- 
censed by reports that the Papists were about to fire their houses, and cut 
their throats while they were at church ; that troops of soldiers were kept 
under-ground to do execution upon them ; and even that the Thames was 
to be blown up with gunpowder. Bates's Elench. Motuum. 



348 HTJDIBBAS. [PABT III. 

And, since our workings-out are crost, 505 

Throw up the Cause before 'tis lost. 

Was it to run away we meant, 

Who, taking of the Covenant, 

The lamest cripples of the brothers 

Took oaths to run before all others, 1 510 

But in their own sense, only swore, 

To strive to run away before, 

And now would prove, that words and oath 

Engage us to renounce them both ? 

'Tis true the Cause is in the lurch, 515 

Between a right and mongrel-church ; 

The Presbyter and Independent, 

That stickle which shall make an end on't, 

As 'twas made out to us the last 

Expedient, — I mean Marg'ret's fast ; 2 520 

When Providence had been suborn'd, 

What answer was to be return'd : 3 

Else why should tumults fright us now, 

We have so many times gone thro', 

And understand as well to tame 525 

As, when they serve our turns, t' inflame ? 

1 These were the words used in the Solemn League and Covenant : " our 
true and unfeigned purpose is, each one to go before another in the example 
of a real reformation." 

2 The lectures and exercises delivered on days of public devotion were 
called expedients. Besides twenty-five days of solemn fasting and humili- 
ation on extraordinary occasions, there was a fast kept every month for 
about eight years together. The Commons attended divine service in St 
Margaret's church, Westminster. The reader will observe that the orator 
does not say Saint Margaret's, but Margaret's fast. Some of the sectaries, 
instead of Saint Peter or Saint Paul, would, in derision, say Sir Peter 
and Sir Paul. See note at page 54. The Parliament petitioned the 
king for fasts, while he had power ; and the appointing them afterwards 
themselves, was an expedient they made use of to alarm and deceive the 
people, who, upon such an occasion, could not but conclude there was some 
more than ordinary impending danger, or some important business carry- 
ing on. 

3 These sectaries pretended a great familiarity with Heaven ; and when 
any villany was to be transacted, they would seem in their prayers to propose 
their doubts and scruples to God Almighty, and after having debated the 
matter some time with him, they would turn their discourse, and bring forth 
an answer suitable to their designs, which the people were to look upon as 

" from heaven. See note at page 66. 



349 



Have prov'd how inconsiderable 
Are all Engagements of the rabble, 
Whose frenzies must be reeoncil'd 
With drums and rattles, like a child, 
But never prov'd so prosperous 
As when they were led on by us ; 
For all our scouring of religion 
Began with tumults and sedition ; 
When hurricanes of fierce commotion 
Became strong motives to devotion, 
As carnal seamen, in a storm, 
Turn pious converts, and reform ; 
When rusty weapons, with chalk'd edges, 
Maintain'd our feeble privileges, 
And brown-bills levy'd in the city, 1 
Made bills to pass the Grand Committee ; 
When zeal, with aged clubs and gleaves, 2 
Gave chase to rochets and white sleeves, 3 
And made the church, and state, and laws, 
Submit t' old iron, and the Cause. 



_ l Apprentices armed with occasional weapons. Ainsworth, in his Dic- 
tionary, translates sparum, a brown-bill. Bishop Warburton says, to fi°ht 
with rusty or poisoned weapons (see Shakspeare's Hamlet) was against the 
law of arms. So when the citizens used the former, they chalked the edo-es 
Samuel Johnson, in the octavo edition of his Dictionary, says, " broton-biU 
was the ancient weapon of the English foot," so called, perhaps because 
sanguined to prevent the rust. The common epithet for a sword, 'or other 
offensive weapon, in the old metrical romances, is brown : as brown brand 
or brown sword, brown-bill, &c. Shakspeare says : 

So with a band of bowmen and of pikes, 

Brown-bills and targeteers 400 strong, 

1 come - °Edward II. Act ii. 

In the ballad of Bobin Hood and Guy of Gisborne, printed in Percy's 
Beliques, line 1508, we have J 

With new chalk'd bills and rusty arms. 
Butler, in his MS Common-place book, says, " the confident man's wit is 
like a watchman's bill with a chalked edge, that pretends to sharpness, only 
to conceal its dull bluntness from the public view." 

2 Zealots armed with old clubs and gleaves, or swords. 

3 Eochets and white sleeves are used figuratively for the bishops who 
were the objects of many violent popular demonstrations, and often as- 
saulted by armed mobs* in the beginning of the troubles 



350 HTJDIBEAS. [PAET III. 

Ana as we thriv'd by tumults then, 

So might we better now agen, 

If we knew how, as then we did, 

To use them rightly in our need : 550 

Tumults, by which the mutinous 

Betray themselves instead of us ; 

The hollow-hearted, disaffected, 

And close malignant are detected ; 

"Who lay their lives and fortunes down, 555 

Eor pledges to secure our own ; 

And freely sacrifice their ears 

T' appease our jealousies and fears. 

And yet for all these providences 

W are offer'd, if we had our senses, 560 

"We idly sit, like stupid blockheads, 

Our hands committed to our pockets, 

And nothing but our tongues at large, 

To get the wretches a discharge : 

Like men condemn' d to thunder-bolts, 565 

"Who, ere the blow, become mere dolts; 1 

Or fools besotted with their crimes, 

That know not how to shift betimes, 

And neither have the hearts to stay, 

Nor wit enough to run away : 570 

"Who, if we could resolve on either, 

Might stand or fall at least together ; 

No mean nor trivial solaces 

To partners in extreme distress, 

"Who use to lessen their despairs, 575 

By parting them int' equal shares ; 

As if the more they were to bear, 2 

They felt the weight the easier ; 

And ev'ry one the gentler hung, 

The more he took his turn among. 580 

But 'tis not come to that, as yet, 

If we had courage left, or wit ; 

1 Some of the ancients were of opinion that thunder stupified before it 
killed, and there is a well-known proverb to this effect. Quern Deus vult 
perdire, prius dementat : He whom God would ruin he first deprives of his 
senses. See Ammian. Marcellin., and Pliny's Natural History, II. 54. 

2 Some editions read, the more there were to bear. 



CANTO II.] HUDIBRAS. 351 

"Who, -when our fate can be no worse, 

Are fitted for the bravest course ; 

Hare time to rally, and prepare . 585 

Our last and best defence, despair : 

Despair, by which the gallant' st feats 

Have been achiev'd in greatest straits, 

And horrid' st dangers safely wav'd, 

By b'ing courageously outbrav'd ; 590 

As wounds by wider wounds are heal'd, 

And poisons by themselves expell'd: 1 

And so they might be now agen, 

If we were, what we should be, men ; 

And not so dully desperate, 595 

To side against ourselves with fate : 

As criminals, condemn'd to suffer, 

Are blinded first, and then turn'd over. 

This comes of breaking covenants, 

And setting up exempts of saints, 2 600 

That fine, like aldermen, for grace, 

To be excus'd the efficace : 3 

For sp'ritual men are too transcendent, 

That mount their banks for independent, 4 

To hang, like Mah'met, in the air, 5 605 

Or St Ignatius, at his prayer, 6 

1 Sneering at Sir Kenelm Digby, and others, who asserted that the sting 
of a scorpion was curable by its own oil. See v. 1029 of this canto. 

2 Dispensing, in particular instances, with the covenant and obligations. 
In the early editions, exempts is printed exauns, according to the old 
French pronunciation. 

3 Persons who are nominated to an office, and pay the accustomed fine, 
are considered to have performed the service. Thus, some of the sectaries, 
if they paid handsomely, were deemed saints, and full of grace, though, 
from the tenor of their lives, they merited no such distinction ; compounding 
for their want of real grace, that they might be excused the drudgery of 
good works ; for spiritual men are too transcendent to grovel in good works, 
namely, those spiritual men that mount their banks for independent. Ef- 
ficace signifies actual performance. 

4 Eire sur les bancs is to hold a dispute, to assert a claim, to contest a 
right or an honour ; to be a competitor. 

5 They need no such support as the body of Mahomet ; which legends 
averred was suspended in the air, by being placed in a steel coffin, between 
two magnets of equal power. 

6 Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. An old soldier : at the 
siege of Pampeluna by the French he had both his legs wounded, the left 



352 HUDIBEAS. L PAET m - 

• By pure geometry, and hate 

Dependence upon church or state ; 

Disdain the pedantry o' th' letter, 1 

And since ohedience is better, 610 

The Scripture says, than sacrifice, 

Presume the less on't will suffice ; 

And scorn to have the moderat'st stints 

Prescrib'd their peremptory hints, 

Or any opinion, true or false, 615 

Declar'd as such, in doctrinals ; 

But left at large to make their best on, 

"Without b'ing call'd t' account or quest'on : 

Interpret all the spleen reveals, 

As Whittington explain' d the bells ; 2 620 

And bid themselves turn back agen 

Lord May'rs of New Jerusalem ; 

But look so big and overgrown, 

They scorn their edifiers t' own, 

"Who taught them all their sprinkling lessons, 625 

Their tones, and sanctify' d expressions ; 

Bestow' d their gifts upon a saint, 

Like charity, on those that want ; 

And learn' d th' apocryphal bigots 

T' inspire themselves with shorthand notes, 3 630 

For which they scorn and hate them worse 

Than dogs and cats do sow-gelders : 
by a stone, the right broken by a bullet. His fervours in devotion were so 
strong that, according to the legend, they sometimes raised him two cubits 
from the ground, and sustained him for a considerable time together. 

1 That is, they did not suffer their consciences to be controlled by the let- 
ter of Scripture, but rather interpreted Scripture by their consciences. 

2 Every one knows the legend of Dick "Whittington, who, having run away 
from his master as far as Highgate, heard the bells of Bow ringing 

Turn again "Whittington 

Thrice Mayor of London. 
An augury which he obeyed, and in time realized, being Lord Mayor in the 
years 1397, 1406, and 1419; he also amassed a fortune of £350,000. See 
Tatler, No. 78. 

3 Learn' d, that is, taught, in which sense it is used by the old poets. 
Apocryphal bigots, not genuine ones, some suppose to be a kind of second- 
rate Independent divines, that availed themselves of the genuine bigot's or 
Presbyterian minister's discourse, by taking down the heads of it in short- 
hand, and then retailing it at private meetings. The accent is laid upon 
the last .syllable of bigot, 



CANTO II.] HUDIBEAS. 353 

For who first bred them up to pray, 

And teach the House of Commons way ? 

Where had they all their gifted phrases, 635 

But from our Calamies and Cases ? ' 

"Without whose sprinkeling and sowing, 

AVhoe'er had heard of IS"ye or Owen ? 2 

Their dispensations had been stifled, 

But for our Adoniram Byfield ; 3 640 

And had they not begun the war, 

They 'd ne'er been sainted as they are : 4 

For saints in peace degenerate, 

And dwindle down to reprobate ; 

Their zeal corrupts, like standing water, 645 

In th' intervals of war and slaughter ; 

1 Calamywas minister of Aldermanbury, London, a zealous Presbyterian 
and Covenanter, and frequent preacher before the Parliament. He was one 
of the first who whispered in the conventicles, what afterward he proclaimed 
openly, that for the cause of religion it was lawful for the subjects to take 
up arms against the king. Case, also, a Presbyterian, upon the deprivation 
of a loyalist, became minister of Saint Mary-Magdalen church, Milk-street ; 
where it was usual with him thus to invite his people to the communion : 
" You that have freely and liberally contributed to the Parliament, for the 
defence of God's cause and the gospel, draw near," &c, instead of the words, 
"Ye that do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins." He was one of 
the Assembly of Divines, preached for the Covenant, and printed his sermon ; 
preached often before the Parliament, was a bitter enemy to Independents, 
and concerned with Love in his plot. 

2 Philip Nye was an Independent preacher, zealous against the king and 
bishops beyond most of his brethren. He went on purpose into Scotland 
to expedite the Covenant, and preached before both Houses in England, when 
that obligation was taken by them. He was at first a Presbyterian, and one 
of the Assembly ; but afterwards left them. At the Restoration, it was de- 
bated by the Healing Parliament, for several hoars, whether he should not 
be excepted from life. Doctor Owen was the most eminent divine of the 
Independents, and in great credit with Cromwell. He was promoted by them 
to the deanery of Christchurch, of Oxford. In 1654, being vice-chancellor, 
he offered to represent the university in Paiiiament ; and, to remove the ob- 
jection of his being a divine, renounced his orders, and pleaded that he was 
a layman. He was returned ; but his election being questioned in the com- 
mittee, he sat only a short time. 

3 Byfield, originally an apothecary, was a noted Presbyterian, chaplain 
to Colonel Cholmondely's regiment, in the Earl of Essex's army, and one of 
the scribes to the Assembly of Divines. Afterwards he became minister of 
Collingborn, in Wilts, and assistant to the commissioners in ejecting scan- 
dalous ministers. 

4 Had not the divines, on the Presbyterian side, fomented the differences, 
the Independents would never have come into play, or been taken notice of. 

2 A 



354 HTTDIBRAS. [PART III. 

Abates the sharpness of its edge, 

Without the pow'r of sacrilege : ! 

And tho' they 've tricks to cast their sins, 

As easy 's serpents do their skins, 650 

That in a while grow out agen, 

In peace they turn mere carnal men, 

And from the most refin'd of saints, 

As nat'rally grow miscreants 

As barnacles turn soland geese 655 

In th' islands of the Orcades. 2 

Their Dispensation's but a ticket 

For their conforming to the wicked, 

With whom their greatest difference 

Lies more in words and show, than sense : 660 

1 That is, if they have not the power and opportunity of committing sa- 
crilege, by plundering the church lands. 

2 This was a common notion with the early Naturalists, and is among the 
figured wonders in Olaus Magnus de Gentibus Septentrionalibus, 1555, 
Gerald's Herbal, Gotofredi Archontologia Cosmica, and several other old 
folios. But the poet is probably hitting at the Royal Society, who, in 
their twelfth volume of the Philosophical Transactions, No. 137, p. 925 
give Sir Eobert Moray's account of Barnacles hanging upon trees, each 
containing a little bird, so completely formed, that nothing appeared 
wanting, as to the external parts, for making up a perfect sea-fowl : the 
little bill, like that of a goose ; the eyes marked ; the head, neck, breast 
and wings, tail, and feet formed ; the feathers every way perfectly shaped, 
and blackish coloured; and the feet like those of other water fowls. 
Pennant explains this by observing that the Barnacle (Lepas anatifera) 
is furnished with a feathered beard, which, in a credulous age, was believed 
to be part of a young bird ; it is often found adhering to the bottoms of 
ships. Sir John Mandeville, in his Voyages, says, " In my country there 
are trees that do bear fruit that become birds flying, and they are good 
to eat, and that which falls in the water lives, and that which falls on the 
earth dies." Hector Boetius, in his History of Scotland, tells us of a 
goose-bearing tree, as it is called in the Orcades : that is, one whose leaves 
falling into the water, are turned to those geese which are called Soland 
geese, and found in prodigious numbers in those parts. In Moore's Travels 
into the inland parts of Africa, p. 54, we read: "This evening, December 
18, 1730, I supped upon oysters which grew upon trees. Down the river 
(Gambia) where the water is salt, and near the sea, the river is bounded 
with trees called mangroves, whose leaves being long and heavy weigh the 
boughs into the water. To these leaves the young oysters fasten in great 
quantities, where they grow till they are very large ; and then you cannot 
separate them from the tree, but are obliged to cut off the boughs : the 
oysters hanging on them resemble a rope of onions." 



CAXTO II.] HUDTBRAS. 353 

For as the Pope, that keeps the gate 

Of heaven, wears three crowns of state ; l 

So he that keeps the gate of hell, 

Proud Cerh'rus, wears three heads as well : 

And, if the world has any troth, 065 

Some hare been canoniz'd in both. 

But that which does them greatest harm, 

Their sp'ritua] gizzards are too warm, 2 

"Which puts the overheated sots 

In fevers still, like other goats ; 3 670 

Por tho' the Whore bends hereticks 

With flames of fire, like crooked sticks, 4 

Our schismatics so vastly differ, 

Th' hotter they 're they grow the stifter ; 

Still setting off their sp'ritual goods, 675 

With fierce and pertinacious feuds : 

Por zeal 's a dreadful termagant, 

That teaches saints to tear and rant, 

And Independents to profess 

The doctrine of Dependences ; 5 680 

Turns meek and sneaking Secret ones, 6 

To raw-heads fierce and bloody-bones ; 

And not content with endless quarrels 

Against the wicked, and their morals, 

The Gribellines, for want of Gruelfs, 7 685 

Divert their rage upon themselves. 

1 The pope claims the power of the keys, and the tiara or triple crown 
is a badge of papal dignity. 

2 Persons are said to have a broiling in their gizzards when they stomach 
anything very much. 

3 This was an old medical superstition. Varro, ii. 3, 5, &c. 

4 Rome was identified with the whore of Babylon mentioned in the Re- 
velations : and the Romanists are said to have attempted the conversion of 
infidels by means of fire and faggots, as men made crooked sticks straight 
by fire and steam. 

* 5 "lam oallcd an Independent," said one, when asked by a Magistrate 
(before whom he went to make his declarations and obtain his license), 
"because I depend upon my Bible." 

6 The early editions read thus, but Grey reads "secret sneaking ones." 

7 These names of distinction were first made use of at Pistoia, where, 
when the magistrates expelled the Panzatichi, there chanced to be two bro- 
thers, Germans, one of whom, named Guelph, was for the pope, the other, 
Gibel, for the emperor. The spirit of these parties raged with great violence 
in Italy and Germany during the middle ages. Dr Ileyliu says some are 

2 a 2 



356 HT7DIBEAS. [PAET III. 

For now the war is not between 

The brethren and the men of sin, 

But saint and saint to spill the blood 

Of one another's brotherhood, 690 

"Where neither side can lay pretence 

To liberty of conscience, 1 

Or zealous suff'ring for the Cause, 

To gain one groat's worth of applause ; 

For tho' endur'd with resolution, 695 

'Twill ne'er amount to persecution; 

Shall precious saints, and Secret ones, 

Break one another's outward bones, 2 

And eat the flesh of bretheren, 

Instead of kings and mighty men ? 700 

"When fiends agree among themselves, 3 

Shall they 4 be found the greater elves ? 

When Bel's at union with the Dragon, ■ 

And Baal-Peor friends with Dagon ; 

When savage bears agree with bears, 705 

Shall Secret ones lug saints by th' ears, 

And not atone their fatal wrath, 5 

When common danger threatens both ? 

Shall mastiffs, by the collars pull'd, 

Engag'd with bulls, let go their hold ; 710 

And saints, whose necks are pawn'd at stake, 6 

No notice of the danger take ? 

But tho' no pow'r of heav'n or hell 

Can pacify fanatic zeal, 

Who would not guess there might be hopes, 715 

The fear of gallowses and ropes 

of opinion that the fiction of Elfs and Goblins, by which we used to frighten 
children, was derived from Guelphs and Ghibellmes. Butler wrote these 
lines before the Guelphs had become the ancestors of our own royal line. 
See the genealogy in Burke's Royal Pedigrees. 

1 That is, not having granted liberty of conscience. 

2 A sneer upon the abuse of Scripture phrases, alluding to Psalm ii. 9 ; 
the same may be said of lines 326, 328, and 700. 

3 O shame to men ! devil with devil damn'd 

Firm concord holds ■ Paradise Tost, ii. 496. 

4 They, that is, the saints, see v. 689, 697. 

5 Atone, that is, reconcile, see v. 717. 

6 That is, and saints, whose all is at stake, as they will be hanged if 
things do not take a friendly turn. 



CANTO II.] HTJDTBB.AS. 357 

Before their eyes might reconcile 

Their animosities a while ? 

At least until they 'd a clear stage, 

And equal Freedom to engage, 720 

"Without the danger of surprise 

By both our common enemies ? 

This none but we alone could doubt, 1 
"Who understood their Workings-out, 
And know 'em both in soul and conscience, 725 

Griv'n up t' as reprobate a nonsense 2 
As spiritual out-laws, whom the pow'r 
Of miracle can ne'er restore. 
We, whom at first they set up under, 
In revelation only 'f plunder, 730 

Who since have had so many trials 
Of their encroaching Self-denials, 3 
That rook'd upon us with design 4 
To out-reform and undermine ; 

Took all our int'rests and commands 735 

Perfidiously out of our hands ; 
Involv'd us in the Guilt of Blood, 
Without the motive gains allow'd, 5 
And made us serve as ministerial, 
Like younger sons of father Belial. 740 

And yet, for all th' inhuman wrong 
They 'd done us and the Cause so long, 
We never fail'd to carry on 
The work still, as we had begun : 
But true and faithfully obey'd, 745 

And neither preach'd them hurt, nor pray'd ; 
Nor troubled them to crop our ears, 
Nor hang us, like the Cavaliers ; 

1 We alone could doubt that the fear of the gallows might reconcile their 
animosities, &c. 

2 Given up to such a state of reprobation and the guidance of their own 
folly, that nothing, not even miraculous power, can restore them. 

3 The Independents got rid of the Presbyterian leaders by the Self-deny- 
ing Ordinance. 

4 That played the cheat. 

5 That is, without allowing us the gains which were the motives to such 
actions. 



358 HUDIBEAS. [PABT III. 

Nor put them to the charge of jails, 

To find us pill'ries and carts'-tails, 750 

Or hangman's wages, 1 which the state 

Was ibrc'd, before them, to be at ; 

That cut, like tallies, to the stumps, 

Our ears for keeping true accompts, 2 

And burnt our vessels, like a new- 755 

Seal'd peck, or bush'l, for being true 

But hand in hand, like faithful brothers, 

Held forth the Cause against all others, 

Disdaining equally to yield 

One syllable of what we held, 760 

And though we differ'd now and then 

'Bout outward things, and outward men, 

Our inward men, and Constant Frame 

Of spirit, still were near the same ; 

And till they first began to cant, 3 765 

And sprinkle down the Covenant, 

We ne'er had Call in any place, 

Nor dream' d of teaching down Free-grace ; 

But join'd our gifts perpetually, 

Against the common enemy, 770 

Although 'twas ours, and their opinion, 

Each other's church was but a Bimmon. 4 

1 The value of thirteen pence halfpenny, in a coin called a thirteener, 
which the State had to defray, when the Puritans' ears were cropped. 

2 Tallies are corresponding notches made by small traders on sticks, 
which are cut down as the accompts are settled. The meaning seems to be : 
the State made us suffer for keeping true accounts, or for being true, cutting 
our ears like tallies, and branding the vessels of our bodies like a measure 
with the mark fresh upon it. There was a seal put upon true and just 
measures and weights. 

3 The term cant is derived from Mr Andrew Cant, and his son Alexander, 
whose seditious preaching and praying was in Scotland called canting. Grey. 

i A Syrian idol. See 2 Kings v. 18. And Paradise Lost, i. 467 : 

Him followed Rimmon, whose delightful seat 
"Was fair Damascus, on "the fertile banks 
Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams. 

The meaning is, that in the opinion of both, church communion with 
each other was a' like case with that of Naaman's bowing himself in the 
house of Eimmon, equally laying both under the necessity of a petition for 
pardon : the Independents knew that their tenets were so opposite to those of 



CANTO II. j HUDIBKAS. 359 

And yet, for all this Gospel-union, 

And outward show of church-communion, 

They'd ne'er admit us to our shares 77.5 

Of ruling church or state aifairs, 

Nor give us leave t' absolve, or sentence 

T' our own conditions of repentance : 

But shar'd our dividend o' th' crown, 

"We had so painfully preach' d down ; 780 

And forc'd us, though against the grain, 

T' have Calls to teach it up again. 1 

For 'twas but justice to restore 

The wrongs we had receiv'd before ; 

And when 'twas held forth in oui* way 785 

We'd been ungrateful not to pay : 

Who for the right we 've done the nation, 

Have earn'd our temporal salvation, 

And put our vessels in a way 

Once more to come again in play : 790 

Tor if the turning of us out 

Has brought this providence about 

And that our only suffering 

Is able to bring in the king, 2 

What would our actions not have done, 795 

Had we been suffer' d to go on ? 

And therefore may pretend t' a share, 

At least, in Carrying on th' affair : 

But whether that be so or not, 

We 've done enough to have it thought, 800 

the Presbyterians that they could not coalesce, and therefore concealed them 
till they were strong enough to declare them. 

1 The Presbyterians entered into several plots to restore the kino- For 
it was but jushce, said they, to repair the injuries we had received from the 
Independents; and when monarchy was offered to be restored in our own 
sense, and with all the limitations we desired, it had been ungrateful not 
to consent. Nash. ° 

2 Many of the Presbyterians, says Lord Clarendon, when ousted from their 
preferment, or excluded from the House of Commons by the Independents 
pretended to make a merit of it, in respect of their loyalty. And some of 
them bad the confidence to present themselves to King Charles the Second, 
both beforeand after his Restoration, as sufferers for the crown ; this be- 
haviour is ridiculed in many parts of this canto. 



360 HUDIBEAS. [PAET IIL 

And that's as good as if we 'd done % 

And easier past upon account : 

For if it be but half denied, 

"lis half as good as justified. 

The world is naturally averse 805 

To all the truth it sees or hears, 

But swallows nonsense and a lie, 

With greediness and gluttony ; 

And tho' it have the pique, and long, 

'Tis still for something in the wrong : ' 810 

As women long when they're with child 

For things extravagant and wild ; 

For meats ridiculous and fulsome, 

But seldom anything that's wholesome ; 

And, like the world, men's jobbernoles 815 

Turn round upon their ears, the _ 

And what they 're confidently told, 

By no sense else can be controll'd. 

And this, perhaps, may be the means 
Once more to hedge-in Providence. 820 

For as relapses make diseases 
More desp'rate than their first accesses ; 
If we but get again in pow'r, 
Our work is easier than before ; 

And we more ready and expert 825 

I' th' mystery, to do our part : 
We, who did rather undertake 
The first war to create, than make ; 3 
•And when of nothing 'twas begun, 
Bais'd funds as strange, to carry 't on : 4 830 

Trepann'd the state, and fac'd it down, 
With plots and projects of our own : 

1 Pique, or pica, is a depraved appetite, or desire of improper food, to 
which sickly females are more especially subject. For an amusing account 
of these longings, see Spectator, No. 326. 

2 Men's heads are turned with the lies and nonsense poured into their 
ears. See v. 1008. 

3 By creating war, he means, finding pretences for it, stirring up and 
fomenting it. By making war, he means, waging and carrying it on. 

* The taxes levied by Parliament in four years are said to have been 
£17,512,400. 



CANTO II.] HTTDIBRAS. 361 

And if we did such feats at first, 1 

What can we now we 're better vers'd ? 

"Who have a freer latitude 835 

Than sinners give themselves, allow' d ; 

And therefore likeliest to bring in, 

On fairest terms, our Discipline ; 

To which it was reveal'd long since 

"We were ordain'd by Providence, 840 

"When three saints' ears, our predecessors, 

The Cause's primitive confessors, 2 

B'ing crucify' d, the nation stood 

In just so many years of blood, 3 

That, multiply'd by six, express'd 845 

The perfect Number of the Beast, 4 

And prov'd that we must be the men 

To bring this work about agen ; 

And those who laid the first foundation, 

Complete the thorough Beformation : 850 

For who have gifts to carry on 

So great a work, but we alone ? 

"What churches have such able pastors, 

And precious, powerful, preaching masters ? 

Possess'd with absolute dominions 855 

O'er brethren's purses and opinions, 



' The schemes described in these lines are those which the Presbyte 
were charged with practising in the beginning of the civil commotions, to 
enrage the people against the king and the Chnrch of England. 

2 Burton, Prynne, and Bastwick, who, before the civil war, were set in 
the pillory, and had their ears cropt. The severe sentence which was 
passed on these persons, and on Leighton, contributed much to inflame the 
minds of men, and to incense them against the bishops, the Star-chamber, 
and the government. 

3 The civil war lasted six years, from 1642, till the death of the king in 
1648-9. 

4 Alluding to Revelations, ch. xiii. 18. " Here is wisdom. Let him that 
hath understanding count the number of the beast : for it is the number of 
a man ; and his number is six hundred threescore and six." The multipli- 
cation of three units by six, gives three sixes, and the juxtaposition of 
three sixes makes 666, or six hundred sixty-six, the number of the beast. 
This mysterious number and name excited the curiosity of mankind very 
early, and the conjectural solutions of it are numberless ; every nation, sect, 
or person, finding by one means or other that the name of the hostile 
nation, sect, or person, involved the mystical 666. 



362 HTTDIBRAS, [PART III. 

And trusted with the Double keys 

Of heaven, and their warehouses ? 

"Who, when the Cause is in distress, 

Can furnish out what sums they please, 860 

That brooding lie in bankers' hands, 

To be dispos'd at their commands ; 

And daily increase and multiply, 

"With doctrine, use, and usury : 

Can fetch in parties, as in war 865 

All other heads of cattle are, 

From th' enemy of all religions, 

As well as high and low conditions, 

And share them, from blue ribbons down 

To all blue aprons in the town ; l 870 

TVom ladies nurry'd in calleches, 

"With cornets at their footmen's breeches, 2 

The bawds as fat as mother Nab, 

All guts and belly, like a crab. 3 

Our party's great, and better tied 875 

"With oaths, and trade, than any side ; 4 

Has one considerable improvement, 

To double-fortify the Cov'nant ; 

I mean our covenants to purchase 

Delinquents' titles, and the churches, 880 

That pass in sale, from hand to hand, 

Among ourselves, for current land, 

And rise or fall, like Indian actions, 8 

According to the rate of factions ; 

Our best reserve for Eeformation, 885 

"When New outgoings give occasion ; 

1 Supposed by Dr Grey to mean the tradesmen and their apprentices, 
who wore blue aprons, and took a very active part in the troubles, both by 
preaching and fighting. But it appears from the Rump Songs that preachers 
also wore blue aprons. 

2 Calleche, or calash, a light carriage. Cornets were ornaments which 
servants wore upon their breeches. 

3 Ladies of this profession are generally described as coarse and fat. 
The orator means, that the leaders of the faction could fetch in parties of 
all ranks, from the highest to the lowest. 

4 The strength of the Presbyterian party lay in the citizens. 

5 Grey thinks this alludes to the subscription set on foot at the general 
court of the East India House, Oct. 19, 1657. Mercurius Politicus, No. 387. 



CA>"TO II.] - HTJDIBKA.S. 363 

That keeps the loins of brethren girt, 

Their Covenant, their creed, t' assert ; x 

And, when they've paek'd a parliament, 

Will once more try th' expedient : 890 

"Who can already muster friends, 

To serve for members to our ends, 

That represent no part o' th' nation, 

But Fisher' s-folly congregation; 2 

Are only tools to our intrigues, 895 

And sit like geese to hatch our eggs ; 

Who, by their precedents of wit, 

T' outfast, outloiter, and outsit, 3 

Can order matters under-hand, 

To put all bus'ness to a stand : 900 

Lay public bills aside, for private, 

And make 'em one another drive out ; 

Divert the great and necessary 

With trifles to contest and vary, 

And make the nation represent, 905 

And serve for us in parliament ; 

1 A lay preacher at Banbury said, " We know, Lord, that Abraham 
made a covenant, and Moses and David made a covenant, and our Saviour 
made a covenant, but the Parliament's covenant is the greatest of all cove- 
nants." The Marquis of Hamilton being sent into Scotland to appease the 
troubles there, demanded of the Scotch that they should renounce the cove- 
nant ; they answered, that they would sooner renounce their baptism. 

2 Jasper Fisher, one of the six clerks in Chancery, a member of the gold- 
smith' s company, and justice of the peace, spent his fortune in laying out 
magnificent gardens and building a fine house ; which, therefore, was called 
Fisher's Folly. After having been the residence of the Earl of Oxford 
and Sir Roger Manning, it was used as a conventicle. See Fuller's "Wor- 
thies, p. 197, and Stowe's Survey. The place where the house stood is 
now Devonshire Square, Bishopsgate. The word rejiresent means either 
to stand in the place of others, or to resemble them. In the first sense, the 
members they should pack, would represent their constituents ; but in the 
latter sense, only a meeting of enthusiastic sectaries. 

3 By these arts the leaders on the Parliament side defeated the purposes 
of the loyalists, and carried such points in the House as they were bent 
upon. Thus the Piemonstrance was carried, as Lord Clarendon says, merely 
by the hour of the night ; the debates being continued till two o'clock, and 
very many having withdrawn out of pure faintness and disability to attend 
the conclusion. The bill against Episcopacy, and other bills, were carried by 
out-fasting and out-sitting those who opposed them : which made Lord Falk- 
land say, that they who hated bishops hated them worse than the devil, and 
they who loved them, loved them not so well as their own dinners. 



364 



PART Til. 



Cut out more work than can be done 

In Plato's year, 1 but finish none, 

Unless it be the Bulls of Lenthall, 

That always pass'd for fundamental : 2 910 

Can set up grandee against grandee, 

To squander time away, and bandy ; 

Make lords and commoners lay sieges 

To one another's privileges ; 

And, rather than compound the quarrel, 915 

Engage, to th' inevitable peril 

Of both their ruins, th' only scope 

And consolation of our hope ; 

Who, tho' we do not play the game, 

Assist as much by giving aim; 3 920 

Can introduce our ancient arts, 

For heads of factions t' act their parts ; 

Know what a leading voice is worth, 

A seconding, a third, or fourth ; 

How much a casting voice comes to, 925 

That turns up trump of Ay, or No ; 

And, by adjusting all at th' end, 

Share ev'ry one his dividend. 

An art that so much study cost, 

And now's in danger to be lost, 930 

Unless our ancient virtuosos, 

That found it out, get into th' houses. 4 

These are the courses that we took 

To carry things by hook or crook, 5 

1 The Platonic year, or time required for a complete revolution of the 
entire machine of the world, has by some been made to consist of 4000 
common years : others have thought it must extend to 26,000, or still 
more. 

2 The ordinances published by the House of Commons were signed by 
Lenthall, the speaker : and are therefore familiarly called the Bulls of 
Lenthall. They were fundamental, because on them the new order in 
church and state was reared. Afterwards, when the Parliament became 
the Rump, the fundamentals acquired a new meaning. 

3 Or, in the bowler's phrase, by giving ground. 

* The old members of the Rump were excluded from Cromwell's Parlia- 
ments. When they presented themselves with Prynne at their head, they 
were met at the door by Colonel Pride, and refused admittance. 

5 Crook and Hutton were the only judges who dissented from their 
brethren, when the case of Ship-money was argued in the Exchequer : which 



CA>"rO II.] HXDIBEAS. 365 

And practis'd down from forty-four, 935 

Until they turn'd us out of door: 1 

Besides the herds of loutefeus 2 

"We set on work, without the House. 

"When ev'ry knight and citizen 

Kept legislative journeymen, 940 

To bring them in intelligence, 

From all points of the rabble's 

And fill the lobbies of both Houses 

With politic important buzzes ; 

Set up committees of cabals, 3 945 

To pack designs -without the walls ; 

Examine and draw up all news, 

And fit it to our present use ; 

Agree upon the plot o' th' farce, 

And ev'ry one his part rehearse ; 950 

Make Q's of answers, to way -lay 

"What th' other parties like to say ; 4 

What repartees, and smart reflections, 

Shall be return' d to all objections ; 

And who shall break the master-jest, 955 

And what, and how, upon the rest ; 

Help pamphlets out, with safe editions, 

Of proper slanders and seditions, 

And treason for a token send, 

By Letter to a Country Friend ; 960 

Disperse lampoons, the only wit 

That men, like burglary, commit, 

With falser than a padder's face, 

That all its owner does betrays ; 

occasioned the wags to say, punningly, that the king carried it by Hook, 
but not by Crook. 

1 From the time of the Self-denying ordinance, 1644, when the Presby- 
terians were turned out from all places of profit and power, till Pride's 
Purge, on December 7, 1648. 

2 Incendiaries. 

3 The poet probably alludes to the ministers of Charles the Second, the 
initials of whose names were satirically so arranged as to make up the word 
cabal. See note, page 25. 

4 Prisoners in Newgate, and other gaols, have often sham-examinations, 
to prepare them with answers for their real trials. 



360 HTTDIBRAS. [PAET III. 

"Who therefore dares not trust it, when 9G5 

He's in his calling, to be seen. 1 

Disperse the dung on barren earth, 

To bring new weeds of discord forth ; 

Be sure to keep up congregations, 

In spite of laws and proclamations : 970 

For charlatans can do no good, 2 

Until they're mounted in a crowd ; 

And when they're punish' d, all the hurt 

Is but to fare the better for't ; 

As long as confessors are sure 975 

Of double pay for all th' endure, 3 

And what they earn in persecution, 

Are paid t' a groat in contribution : 

Whence some tub-holders-forth have made 

In powd'ring-tubs their richest trade ; 980 

And, while they kept their shops in prison, 

Have found their prices strangely risen. 4 

1 Padders, or highwaymen, usually covered their faces with a mask or 
piece of crape. 

2 Charlatan is a quack doctor, whom punishment makes more widely 
known, and so benefits instead of injures. 

? Alluding again to Burton, Prynne, and Bastwiek, who having been 
pilloried, fined, and banished to different parts of the kingdoms, by the 
sentence of the Star-chamber, were by the Parliament afterward recalled, 
and rewarded out of the estates of those who had punished them. In their 
way back to London they were honoured with loud acclamations, and re- 
ceived many presents. 

silenc'd ministers, 

That get estates by being undone 
For tender conscience, and have none : 
Like those that with their credit drive 
A trade without a stock, and thrive. 

Butler's Remains, vol. i. 63. 
4 Powdering-tubs, which were tubs for salting beef in, may here signify 
either prisons or hospitals. The term powdering was a synonyme for 
sprinkling with salt, and so came to be applied to the places where infected 
persons were cured. When any one gets into a scrape, he is said to be in a 
pretty pickle. Ancient Pistol throws some light upon this passage when 



he bids Nym 



"to the spital go, 
And from the powdering-tub of infamy 
Fetch forth the lazar kite of Cressid's kind, 
Doll Tearsheet she by name, and her espouse." 

Hen. V. Act i. 



CAJTTO II.] nUDIBEAS. 367 

Disdain to own the least regret 
For all the Christian blood we 've let ; 
'Twill save our credit, and maintain 985 

Our title to do so again ; 
That needs not cost one dram of sense, 
But pertinacious impudence. 
Our constancy t' our principles, 

In time will wear out all things else ; 990 

Like marble statues, rubb'd in pieces 
With gallantry of pilgrims' kisses ; l 
While those who turn and wind their oaths, 
Have swell' d and sunk, like other froths ; 
Prevail' d a while, but 'twas not long 995 

Before from world to world they swung ; 
As they had turn'd from side to side, 
And as the changelings hv'd, they dy'd. 
This said, th' impatient statesmonger 
Could now contain himself no longer, 2 1000 

Who had not spar'd to show his piques 
Against th' haranguer's politics, 
With smart remarks of leering faces 
And annotations of grimaces. 

After he'd miuister'd a dose 1005 

Of snuff mundungus to his nose, 3 
And powder'd th' inside of his skull, 4 
Instead of th' outward jobbernol, 5 

Butler may mean that some of the tub-holders-forth kept houses of ill fame, 
from whence the transit to the powdering-tub was frequent. See also 
Measure for Measure, Act iii. sc. 2. 

' Eound the Casa Santa of Loretto, the marble is worn into a deep chan- 
nel, by the knees and kisses of devout pilgrims. Many statues of saints are 
in like manner worn by the adoration of their votaries. 

2 As the former orator had harangued on the side of the Presbyterians, 
his antagonist, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, now smartly inveighs against 
them, and justifies the principles and conduct of the Independents. 

3 Grey illustrates what he calls the beastly habit of snuff-taking by a story 
from Chardin's Travels, quoted by Montaigne, Essay 22, which is : that at 
Bootan, in the East Indies, the prince is held in such esteem and reverence, 
that the courtiers collect his ordure in a linen cloth, and after drying and 
preparing it, not only use it as snuff, but strew it over their meals as a great 
delicacy. 

4 The early editions read " soul." 

5 That is, thick-head, or blockhead. See Wright's Glossary 



368 HUDIBKAS. [PART III. 

He shook it with a scornful look, 

On th' adversary, and thus he spoke : 1010 

In dressing a calf's head, altho' 
The tongue and brains together go, . 

Both keep so great a distance here, 
'Tis strange if ever they come near ; 
For who did ever play his gambols 1015 

With such insufferable rambles, 
To make the bringing in the king, 
And keeping of him out, one thing ? 
"Which none could do, but those that swore 
T' as point-blank nonsense heretofore ; 1020 

That to defend was to invade, 
And to assassinate to aid : 1 
Unless, because you drove him out, 
And that was never made a doubt ; 
No pow'r is able to restore 1025 

And bring him in, but on your score : 
A sp'ritual doctrine, that conduces 
Most properly to all your uses. 
'Tis true, a scorpion's oil is said 
To cure the wounds the vermin made ; 2 1030 

And weapons, dress' d with salves, restore 
And heal the hurts they gave before : 3 
But whether Presbyterians have 
So much good nature as the salve, 
Or virtue in them as the vermin, 1035 

Those who have tried them can determine. 
Indeed 'tis pity you should miss 
Th' arrears of all your services, 

1 This alludes to Rolf, a shoemaker, who was indicted for entertaining a 
design to kill the king when imprisoned in the Isle of Wight, in evidence 
of which Osborne and Doucet swore positively. Serjeant Wild, who was 
sent to Winchester to try the case, and is said to have been bribed to 
get Rolf off, gave an unfair charge to the jury, by saying: "There was a 
time indeed when intentions and words were made treason ; but God forbid 
it should be so now : how did anybody know but that" those two men, Os- 
borne and Doucet (the evidence), would have made away with the king, and 
that Rolf charged his pistol to preserve him." Clarendon, vol. hi. p. 180. 

3 This is Pliny's statement, Natural History, xxix. 29. Similar stories 
are extant respecting the fat of the viper. 

3 A sneer at Six Kenelm Digby's doctrine of sympathy. 



CJLMO II.] HUDIBEAS. 369 

And for th' eternal obhgation 

T' have laid upon th' ungrateful nation, 1040 

Be us'd s' unconscionably hard, 

As not to find a just reward, 

For letting rapine loose, and murther, 

To rage just so far, but no further : l 

And setting all the land on fire, 1045 

To burn t' a scantling, but no higher : 2 

For vent'ring to assassinate, 

And cut the throats of church and state ; 

And not b' allow' d the fittest men 

To take the charge of both agen : 1050 

Especially that have the Grace 

Of Self-denying Gifted face ; 

Who, when your projects have miscarry'd, 

Can lay them, with undaunted forehead, 

On those you painfully 3 trepann'd, 1055 

And sprinkled in at second hand ; 4 

As we have been, to share the guilt 

Of Christian blood, devoutly spilt ; 5 

For so our ignorance was flamm'd 

To damn ourselves, t' avoid being damn'd; 6 1060 

Till finding your old foe, the hangman, 

"Was like to lurch you at backgammon, 7 
Though the Presbyterians began the war, yet they pretended they had 
no. thoughts of occasioning the bloodshed and devastation which were con- 
sequent upon it. They intended to bring the king to reason, not to murder 
him. It happened to them, however, as to the would-be conjurer, who, by 
certain words he had overheard, sent a broomstick to fetch water ; but not 
recollecting the words to make it stop, it went and fetched water without 
ceasing, till it filled the house, and drowned him. 

Grey compares this to the joke of two countrymen who having bought 
a barn in partnership, one threatened to set his own half on fire. 

3 Meaning, Avith pains, laboriously. "Walker says, " that by an impudent 
fallacy, called Translatio Criminis, the Independents laid their brats at 
other men's doors." 

Baptizing members into their churches in opposition to the practice of 
the Anabaptists. 

5 The war was begun and carried on by the Presbyterians in the name 
of religion, and in defence of the gospel. 

6 Meaning, to commit robbery, rebellion, and murder, with a view of 
keeping out Arminianism, Popery, &c. 

7 That is, finding the king was likely to get the better of you, and that 
we were all in danger of being hanged as traitors, we took the war out of 

iur hands into our own management. 
2 B 



370 HTJDIBEAS. [PABT III. 

And win your necks upon the set, 

As well as ours, who did but bet ; 

For he had drawn your ears before, 10G5 

And nick'd 'em on the self-same score, 

We threw the box and dice away, 

Before you 'd lost us at foul play ; 

And brought you down to rook and lie, 

And fancy only on the by ; ' 1070 

Eedeem'd your forfeit jobbernoles, 2 

From perching upon lofty poles, 

And rescu'd all your outward traitors, 

From hanging up, like alligators ; 3 

For which ingeniously ye 've show'd 1075 

Tour Presbyterian gratitude ; 

Would freely 've paid us home in kind, 

And not have been one rope behind. 4 

Those were your motives to divide, 

And scruple, on the other side, 5 1080 

To turn your zealous frauds, and force, 

To fits of conscience and remorse ; 

To be convinc'd they were in vain, 

And face about for new again ; 

For truth no more unveil'd your eyes, 1085 

Than maggots are convinc'd to flies : 6 

1 By-bets are bets made by spectators of a game, or standers-by : the 
Presbyterians, from being principals in the cause, were reduced to a second- 
ary position ; and from being principal players of the game, became mere 
lookers-on. 

a The beads of traitors were set up on poles at Temple-bar or London 
Bridge. 

3 Alligators were frequently hung up in the shops of druggists and 



4 The Dissenters, when in power, were no enemies to persecution, and 
showed themselves as hearty persecutors as ever the Church had been. 
They maintained that " A toleration of different ways of churches and 
church government will be to this kingdom very mischievous, pernicious, 
and destructive ; " and Calamy, being asked what he would do with those 
who differed from him in opinion, said, " He would not meddle with their 
consciences, but only with their persons and estates." 

5 He tells the Presbyterians that their jealousy of the Independents 
caused their treachery to them, not any scruple of conscience. 

6 The change was produced in them merely by the course of their nature. 
The edition of 1710 reads : 

Than maggots when they turn to flies. 



CANTO II.] nUDIBKAS. 371 

And therefore all your Lights and Calls 

Are but apocryphal and false, 

To charge us with the consequences, 

Of all your native insolences, 1090 

That to your own imperious wills 

Laid Law and Gospel neck and heels ; 

Corrupted the Old Testament, 

To serve the New for precedent ; 

T' amend its errors and defects, 1095 

"With murder and rebellion texts ; l 

Of which there is not any one 

In all the book to sow upon ; 

And therefore from your tribe, the Jews 

Held Christian doctrine forth, and use; 1100 

As Mahomet, your chief, began 

To mix them in the Alcoran ; 2 

1 The Presbyterians, he says, finding no countenance for their purposes 
in the New Testament, took their measures of obedience from some in- 
stances of rebellion in the Old. Among the corrupted texts to which 
Butler alludes is probably that printed at Cambridge, by Buck and 
Daniel, in 1638, where Acts vi. 3, reads ye instead of " we'may appoint 
over this business," a corruption attributed by some to the Independents, by 
others to the Presbyterians. But several of the Bibles printed either 
during or immediately preceding the Commonwealth contain gross blunders. 
In the so-called Wicked Bible, printed by Bates and Lucas, 1632, the seventh 
commandment is printed, " Thou shalt commit adultery." In another 
Bible, printed in the Reign of Charles I., and immediately suppressed, 
Psalm xiv. reads, " The fool hath said in his heart, there is a God." One 
printed during the Commonwealth (1653) by Field, reads at Bom. vi. 13, 
"Neither yield ye your members as instruments of righteousness unto 
sin;" and at 1 Cor. vi. 9, "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall in- 
herit the kingdom of God." Many other Bibles, some of much later date, 
present typographical errors, the most remarkable of which is perhaps that 

frinted at Belfast, by James Blood, 1716 (the first Bible printed in 
reland), which at John viii. 11, reads sin on more, instead of " sin no 
more." 

2 In his Pindaric Ode upon an hypocritical nonconformist, Remains, 
vol. i. p. 135, Mr Butler says: 

For the Turks' patriarch, Mahomet, 
"Was the first great reformer, and the chief 
Of th' ancient Christian belief, 
That mix'd it with new light and cheat, 
With revelations, dreams, and visions, 
And apostolic superstitions, 
To be held forth, and carry' d on by war • 
And his successor was a presbyter. 
2 B 2 



372 HUDIBEAS. [PAET III. 

Denounc'd and pray'd with fierce devotion, 

And bended elbows on the cushion ; 

Stole from the beggars all your tones, 1105 

And gifted mortifying groans ; 

Had lights where better eyes were blind, 

As pigs are said to see the wind ; x - 

Fill'd Bedlam with Predestination, 

And Knightsbridge with Illumination; 2 mo 

Made children, with your tones, to run for't, 

As bad as Bloodybones or Lunsford : 3 

"While women, great with child, miscarry'd, 

For being to Malignants marry' d. 

Transform'd all wives to Dalilahs, 1115 

Whose husbands were not for the Cause ; 4 

And turn'd the men to ten-horn'd cattle, 

Because they came not out to battle ; 5 

Made tailors' 'prentices turn heroes, 

For fear of b'ing transform'd to Meroz, 6 1120 

' Pigs are said to be very sagacious in foretelling -wind and weather. 
Thus, in a poem entitled Hudibras at Court, we read : 

And now, as hogs can see the wind, 
And storms at distance coming find. 

2 At this village, near London, was a lazar-house, to which the poet 
alludes. 

3 That is, frightened children as much by your preaching, as if you had 
threatened them with Rawhead and Bloodybones. Sir Thomas Lunsford, 
who was represented by his enemies as devouring children out of mere blood- 
thirstiness, was lieutenant of the Tower a little before the beginning of the 
war ; but afterwards removed by desire of the Parliament. He is repre- 
sented by Lord Clarendon as a man of desperate character and . dissolute 
habits. 

4 If the husband sided not with the Presbyterians, his wife was represent- 
ed as insidious and a betrayer of her country's interests, such as Dahlah was 
to Samson and the Israelites. Judges xvi. 

5 Compared them to the ten horns, or ten kings, who gave their power 
and strength to the beast. Revelation xvii. 12. See also Daniel vii. 7. 
A cuckold is called a horned beast, and a notorious cuckold may be called a 
ten-horned beast, there being no beast described with more horns than the 
beast in vision. 

6 " Curse ye Meroz," said the angel of the Lord ; " curse ye bitterly the 
inhabitants thereof ; because they came not to the help of the Lord agains* 
the mighty." Judges v. 23. This was a favourite text with those who 
preached for the Parliament : and it assisted them much in raising recruits. 



CA.XTO II.] HUDIBEAS. 373 

And rather forfeit their indentures, 

Than not espouse the saints' adventures : 

Could transubstantiate, metamorphose, 

And charm whole herds of beasts, like Orpheus ; 

Enchant the king's and church's lands, 1125 

T' obey and follow your commands, 

And settle on a new freehold, 

As Marcley-hill had done of old : l 

Could turn the Cov'nant, and translate 

The Gospel into spoons and plate ; 1130 

Expound upon all merchant's cashes, 

And open th' Intricatest places ; 

Could catechise a money-box, 

And prove all pouches orthodox ; 

Until the Cause became a Damon, 1135 

And Pythias the wicked Mammon. 2 

And yet, in spite of all your charms 
To conjure Legion up in arms, 
And raise more devils in the rout 
Than e'er y' were able to cast out, 1140 

T' have been reduc'd, and by those fools, 
Bred up, you say, in your own schools, 
Who, tho' but gifted at your feet, 3 
Have made it plain they have more wit, 
By whom you've been so oft trepann'd, 1145 

And held forth out of all command ; 
Out-gifted, out-impuls'd, out-done, 
And out-reveal'd at Carryings-on ; 
Of all your Dispensations worm'd, 
Out-providenc'd and out-reform' d ; 1150 

Ejected out of church and state, 
And all things but the people's hate ; 

1 Not far from Ledbury in Herefordshire, towards the conflux of the 
Lug and "Wye, in the parish of Marcley, is a hill, which in the year 1575 
moved to a considerable distance. Camden, in his Life of Queen Elizabeth, 
book ii. p. 20 thinks the motion was occasioned by an earthquake, which 
he calls brasmatia ; though the cause of it more probably was a subterraneous 
current, as the motion continued for three days. Some houses and a chapel 
were overturned. 

4 Until Mammon and the Cause were as closely united and as dear friends 
as Damon and Pythias, the story of whose well-known friendship is cele- 
brated by Plutarch, Valerius Maximus, and others. 

3 Acts xxii. 3. 



374 HUDIBEAS. [PAET III. 

And spirited out of th' enjoyments 

Of precious, edifying employments, 

By those who lodg'd their Grifts and Graces, 1155 

Like better bowlers, in your places : l 

All which }rou bore with resolution, 

Charg'd on th' account of persecution ; 

And tho' most righteously oppress'd, 

Against your wills, still acquiesc'd ; 1160 

And never humm'd and hah'd sedition, 2 

Nor snuffled treason, nor misprision : 

That is, because you never durst ; 

For had you preach' d and pray'd your worst, 

Alas ! you were no longer able 1165 

To raise your posse of the rabble : 

One single red-coat sentinel 3 

Outcharm'd the magic of the spell, 

And, with his squirt-fire, 4 could disperse 

Whole troops with chapter rais'd and verse. 1170 

"We knew too well those tricks of yours, 

To leave it ever in your pow'rs, 

Or trust our safeties, or undoings, 

To your disposing of outgoings, 

Or to your ordering Providence, 1175 

One farthing's worth of consequence. 

For had you pow'r to undermine, 

Or wit to carry a design, 

Or correspondence to trepan, 

Inveigle, or betray one mart; 1180 

There's nothing else that intervenes, 

And bars your zeal to use the means ; 

And therefore wond'rous like, no doubt, 

To bring in kings, or keep them out : 

1 The preceding lines described precisely the relation of the Independents 
to the Presbyterians, during the Commonwealth. 

2 Hums and hahs were the ordinary expressions of approbation, uttered 
by hearers of sermons. And the "snuffle" was then, and long afterwards, 
" the nasal drawl heard in conventicles." Sir Roger L'Estrange distin- 
guishes between the religion of the head and that of the nose. Apology, 
p. 40. 

3 The "red-coat" is thus specially mentioned because it was now, for 
the first time, made the soldier's peculiar dress; and the Independents 
formed the majority of the soldiery. 

4 That is, his musket. 



CA>'TO IT.] HTJDIBEAS. 375 

Brave undertakers to Restore, 1185 

That could not keep yourselves in pow'r ; 

T' advance the int'rests of the crown, 

That wanted wit to keep your own. 

'Tis true you have, for I'd be loth 

To wrong ye, clone your parts in both ; 1190 

To keep him out. and bring him in, 

As grace is introduc'd by sin : ' 

Tor 'twas your zealous want of sense, 

And sanctify' d impertinence.; 

Tour carrying bus'ness in a huddle, 1195 

That forc'd our rulers to New-model ; 

Oblig'd the state to tack about, 

And turn you, root and branch, ail out ; 

To reformado, one and all, 

T' your great croysado general : 2 1200 

Tour greedy slav'ring 2 to devour, 

Before 'twas in your clutches' pow'r ; 

That sprung the game you were to set, 

Before ye 'd time to draw the net : 

Tour spite to see the church's lands 1205 

Divided into other hands, 

1 Thus Saint Paul to the Romans : " Shall we continue in siu, that grace 
may abound ? " 

3 Called croysado general, because the Parliament pretended to engage in 
the war chiefly on account of religion : a term derived from the holy war 
against the Turks and Saracens, which obtained the name of Crusade, or 
Croisado, from the cross displayed on the banners. The Independents, find- 
ing that the Presbyterians, who held the principal places both in Par- 
liament and in the army, instead of aiming at what had been proposed in 
the Covenant, were solely intent upon securing for .themselves the position 
and authority of the Church of England, and that the Lord General Essex 
was plainly afraid of beating the king too well, proposed and carried the 
Self-denying Ordinance, by which all members of Parliament (except Fair- 
fax and Cromwell) were prohibited from holding commissions in the army 
and seats in the legislature at the same time. Essex, being an " hereditary 
legislator," was forced to resign his command ; the others had to choose 
between the Parliament and the army, and most of the Presbyterian leaders 
chose to retain their seats in the House, thinking so to keep the control of 
the army in their hands. But by the new-modelling of the army, instead 
of the riff-raff which had been pressed into the service at first, it was made 
to consist almost wholly of men who had (as Cromwell said) " a mind to the 
work," small householders and yeomen, whom the Parliament found, too 
late, it could not control. 

3 That is, letting your mouths water. 



376 HTTDIBRAS. [PART III. 

And all your sacrilegious ventures 
A-aid out on tickets and debentures : 
Your envy to be sprinkled down, 
By under- churches in the town ; l 1210 

And no course us'd to stop their mouths, 
Nor th' Independents' spreading growths : 
All which consider' d, 'tis most true 
None bring him in so much as you, 
Who have prevail' d beyond their plots, 2 1215 

Their midnight juntos, and seal'd knots, 
That thrive more by your zealous piques, 
Than all their own rash politics. 
And this way you may claim a share 
In carrying, as you brag, th' affair, 1220 

Else frogs and toads, that croak' d the Jews 
From Pharaoh and his brick-kilns loose, 
And flies and mange, that set them free 
Prom task-masters and slavery, 

Were likelier to do the feat, 1225 

In any indifferent man's conceit : , 
For who e'er heard of Restoration, 
. Until your Thorough Reformation ? 3 
That is, the king's and church's lands 
Were sequester'd int' other hands : 1230 

For only then, and not before, 
Tour eyes were open'd to restore ; 
And when the work was carrying on, 
Who cross' d it, but yourselves alone? 
As by a world of hints appears, 1235 

All plain, and extant, as your ears. 4 

But first, o' th' first : The Isle of Wight 
Will rise up, if you shou'd deny 't ; 

1 By the Independents, whose popularity was much greater with the 
people than that of the Presbyterians. 

2 The plots of the royalists are here meant. 

3 The Independent here charges the Presbyterians with having no design 
of restoring the king, notwithstanding the merit they made of such inten- 
tions after the Restoration, until they were turned out of all profit by sale 
of the crown and church lands ; and that it was not their loyalty, but tbeir 
disappointment and resentment against the Independents, that made them 
think of treating with the king. 

4 In ridicule of the Presbyterians, many of whom, according to Drydeu 
and others, had lost their ears in the pillory. 



(UNTO II.] HUDIBKAS. 377 

\Yhere Henderson and th' other masses, 1 

"Were sent to cap texts, and put cases : 1240 

To pass for deep and learned scholars, 

Altho' but paltry Ob and Sollers : 2 

As if th' unseasonable fools 

Had been a coursing in the schools. 3 

Until they 'd prov'd the devil author 1245 

0' th' Covenant, and the Cause his daughter ; 

For when they charg'd him with the guilt 

Of all the blood that had been spilt, 

They did not mean he wrought th' effusion 

In person, like Sir Pride, or Hughson, 4 1250 

But only those who first begun 

The quarrel were by him set on ; 

And who could those be but the saints, 

Those reformation termagants ? 

But ere this pass'd, the wise debate 1255 

Spent so much time it grew too late ; 5 

1 That is, the other divines. Ministers in those days were ^called masters, 
as they are at the 854th line of this canto. One of this order -would have 
been styled, not the reverend, but master, or master doctor such an one ; 
and sometimes, for brevity's sake, and familiarly, mas, the plural of which, 
our poet makes masses. See Ben Jonson, and Spectator, No. 147. Butler 
is here guilty of anachronism ; for the treaty at the Isle of Wight was two 
years after the death of Henderson. The divines employed there, were 
Marshal, Vines, Caryl, Seaman, Jenkyns, and Shurston. Henderson was 
present at the "Oxbridge treaty, and disputed with the king at Newcastle 
when he was in the Scottish army; soon after which he died, as some said, 
of grief, because he could not convince the king, but, as others said, of re- 
morse, for having opposed him. 

2 That is, although only contemptible dabblers in school logic. So in 
Burton's Melancholy, " A pack of Obs and Sollers." The polemic divines 
of that age and stamp filled the margins both of their tracts and sermons 
with the words Ob and Sol ; the one standing for objection, the other for 
solution. 

3 Coursing is a term used in the university of Oxford for some exercises 
preparatory to a master's degree. 

4 Pride was said to have been a drayman, and to have been knighted by 
Cromwell with a stick, whence in derision he is called Sir Pride. Hughson, 
or Hcwson, was at first a shoemaker or a cobbler, but afterwards one of 
Oliver's Upper House. 

5 The negotiation at the Isle of "Wight was protracted in order to give 
Cromwell time to return from Scotland, by which artifice the settlement of 
the kingdom was effectually frustrated. 



378 HTJDIBEAS. [PAET III, 

For Oliver had gotten ground, 

T' enclose hirn with his warriors round ; 

Had brought his providence about, 

And turn'd th' untimely l sophists out. 1260 

Nor had the Usbridge bus'ness less 
Of nonsense in 't, or sottishness ; 
When from a scoundrel bolder-fortb, 
The scum, as well as son o' th' earth, 
Tour mighty senators took law, 1265 

At his command were.forc'd t' withdraw, 
And sacrifice the peace o' th' nation 
To doctrine, use, and application. 
So when the Scots, your constant cronies, 
Th' espousers of your cause and monies, 3 1270 

Who had so often, in your aid, 
So many ways been soundly paid, 
Came in at last for better ends, 
To prove themselves your trusty friends, 
Tou basely left them, and the church 1275 

/They 'd train'd you up to, in the lurch, 
And suffer'd your own tribe of Christians 
To fall before, as true Philistines. 4 
This shows what utensils you 've been, 
To bring the king's concernments in ; 1280 

Which is so far from being true, 
That none but he can bring in you ; 

1 Untimely here means unseasonable. 

2 Christopher Love, a violent Presbyterian, who preached a sermon at 
Uxbridge during the treaty held there, introducing many reflections upon 
his Majesty's person and government, and stirring up the people against the 
king's commissioners. He was afterwards executed (in 1651) for treason, 
by means of Cromwell and the Independents. 

3 The Scots, in their first expedition, 1640, had £300,000 given them for 
brotherly assistance, besides a contribution of £850 a day from the northern 
counties. In their second expedition, 1643, besides much free quarter, they 
had £19,700 monthly, and received £72,972 in one year by customs on 
coals. The Parliament agreed to give them £400,000 on the surrender of 
the king. — Dugdale. 

4 The Scots made a third expedition into England for the rescue of the 
king, in 1648, under the Duke of Hamilton. They entered a fourth time 
under Charles II., expecting the Presbyterians, their own brethren, to sup- 
port them. But the latter joined Cromwell and the Independents ; thus 
occasioning the portion of the true church to fall before the Independent 
army, whom they reckoned no better than Philistines. 



JAXTO II.] HUDIBBAS. 

And if he take you into trust, 
Will find you most exactly just, 
Such as will punctually repay 
"With double int'rest, and betray. 

Not that I think those pantomimes, 
Who vary action with the times, 
Are less ingenious in their art, 
Than those who dully act one part ; 
Or those who turn from side to side, 
More guilty than the wind and tide. 
All countries are a wise man's home, 
And so are governments to some. 
Who change them for the same intrigues 
That statesmen use in breaking leagues ; 
While others in old faiths and troths 
Look odd, as out-of-fashion'd clothes, 
And nastier in an old opinion, 
Than those who never shift their linen. 
For true and faithful's sure to lose, 
Which way soever the game goes ; 
And whether parties lose or win, 
Is always nick'd, or else hedg'd in : ' 
While pow'r usurp' d, like stol'n delight, 
Is more bewitching than the right : 
And when the times begin to alter, 
None rise so high as from the halter. 
And so we may, if we 've but sense 
To use the necessary means, 
And not your usual stratagems 
On one another, lights, and dreams : 
To stand on terms as positive, 
As if we did not take, but give : 
Set up the Covenant on crutches, 
'Gainst those who have us in their clutches, 
And dream of pulling churches down, 
Before we 're sure to prop our own : 
Tour constant method of proceeding, 
Without the carnal means of heeding, 



1 Nick is a winning throw. Hedge is to protect by a counteracting bet 
3r set-off; a familiar betting term on the turf. 



380 HUDIBEAS. [PART III. 

Who, 'twixt your inward sense and outward, 

Are worse, than if ye 'd none, accoutred. 

I grant all courses are in vain, 

Unless we can get in again ; l 

The only way that's left us now : 1325 

But all the difficulty's, how ? 

s Tis true we 've money, th' only power 

That all mankind falls down before ; 

Money that, like the swords of kings, 

Is the last reason of all things ; 2 1330 

And therefore need not doubt our play 

Has all advantages that way ; 

As long as men have faith to sell, 

And meet with those that can pay well ; 

Whose half-starv'd pride and avarice, 1336 

One church and state will not suffice 

T' expose to sale ; 3 besides the wages 4 

Of storing plagues to after-ages. 

INTor is our money less our own, 

Than 'twas before we laid it down ; 1340 

For 'twill return, and turn t' account, 

If we are brought in play upon 't, 

Or but by casting knaves, get in, 

What pow'r can hinder us to win ? 

We know the arts we us'd before, 1345 

In peace and war, and something more. 

./hen General Monk restored the excluded menib«rs, the Rump, per- 
.ving they could not carry things their own way, and rule as they had 
done, quitted the House. 

2 Diodorus Siculus relates, that when the height of the walls of Amphi- 
polis was pointed out to Philip, as rendering the town impregnable, he 
observed, they were not so high but that money could be thrown over 
them. Addison (in Spectator 239) says : " ready money is a way of reason- 
ing which seldom fails." 

3 There is a list of above a hundred of the principal actors in this rebel- 
lion, among whom the plunder of the church, crown, and kingdom was di- 
vided : to some five, ten, and even twenty thousand pounds ; to others, lands 
and offices of hundreds or thousands a year. At the end of the list, the 
author says, it was computed that they had shared among themselves near 
twenty millions. 

4 They allowed, by their own order, four pounds a week to each member 
of Parliament ; members of the assembly of divines were each allowed four 
shillings a day. 



CAXTO II.] HUDIBEAS. 3S1 

And by th' unfortunate events, 

Can mend our next experiments : 

For when we 're taken into trust, 

How easy are the wisest chous'd, 1350 

Who see but th' outsides of our feats, 

And not their secret springs and Aveights ; 

And whde they 're busy, at their ease, 

Can carry what designs we please ? 

How easy is 't to serve for Agents, 1355 

To prosecute our old Engagements P 

To keep the Good Old Cause on foot, 

And present pow'r from taking root ; ' 

Inflame them both with false alarms 

Of plots, and parties taking arms ; 1360 

To keep the nation's wounds too wide 

From healing up of side to side ; 

Profess the passionat'st Concerns 

For both their interests by turns, 

The only way t' improve our own, 1365 

By dealing faithfully with none ; 

As bowls run true, by being made 

On 2 purpose false, and to be sway'd, 

For if we should be true to either, 

'Twould turn us out of both together ; 1370 

And therefore have no other means 

To stand upon our own defence, 

But keeping up our ancient party 

In vigour, confident and hearty : 

To reconcile our late dissenters, 1375 

Our brethren, though by other venters ; 

Unite them, and their different maggots, 

As long and short sticks are in faggots, 3 

And make them join again as close, 

As when they first began t' espouse ; 1380 

1 General Monk and his party, or the Committee of Safety : for we must 
understand the scene to be laid at the time when Monk bore the sway, or, 
as will appear by and by, at the roasting of the rumps, when Monk and the 
city of London united against the Rump Parliament. 

2 All the early editions have " of purpose." 

3 See iEsop's Fables, 171. Swift told this fable after the ancients, with 
exquisite humour, to reconcile Queen Anne's ministers. 



382 HUBIBRAS. [PART III. 

Erect them into separate 

New Jewish tribes in church and state : ' 

To join in marriage and commerce, 2 

And only 'mong themselves converse, 

And all that are not of their mind, 1385 

Make enemies to all mankind : 3 

Take ail religions in, and stickle 

From conclave down to conventicle ; 4 

Agreeing still or disagreeing, 

According to the light in being, 1390 

Sometimes for liberty of conscience, 

And spiritual misrule in one sense ; 

But in another quite contrary, 

As dispensations chance to vary ; 

And stand for, as the times will bear it, 1395 

All contradictions of the spirit : 

Protect their emissar', empower' d 

To preach sedition, and the word ; 

And when they 're hamper' d by the laws, 

Belease the lab'rers for the cause, 1400 

And turn the persecution back 

On those that made the first attack, 

To keep tbem equally in awe 

From breaking or maintaining law : 

And when they have their fits too soon, 1405 

Before the full-tides of the moon, 

Put off their zeal t' a fitter season 

For sowing faction in and treason ; 

And keep them hooded, and their churches, 

Like hawks, from bating on their perches ; 5 • 1410 

That when the blessed time shall come 

Of quitting Babylon and Borne, 



1 The Jews were not allowed to intermarry or mix familiarly with the 
nations around them. 

2 The accent is here laid upon the last syllable of commerce. 

3 This was the title given by the Jacobins of France to our "William 
Pitt, whom they suspected of traversing their revolutionary schemes. 

4 That is, from the conclave of cardinals, or papists, down to the meeting 
house of nonconformists. 

5 From being too forward, or ready to take flight 



CAXTO II.] HUDIBBA.9. 383 

They may be ready to restore 

Their own Fifth Monarchy once more. 1 

Meanwhile he hetter arm'd to fence 1415 

Against Eevolts of Providence, 2 

By watching narrowly, and snapping 

All blind sides of it, as they happen : 

For if success could make us saints, 

Our ruin turn'd us miscreants ; 3 1420 

A scandal that would fall too hard 

Upon a Few, and unprepar'd. 

These are the courses we must run, 

Spite of our hearts, or be undone, 

And not to stand on terms and freaks, 1426 

Before we have secur'd our necks. 

But do our work as out of sight, 

As stars by day, and suns by night ; 

All licence of the people own, 

In opposition to the crown ; 1430 

And for the crown as fiercely side, 

The head and body to divide. 

The end of all we first design' d, 

And all that yet remains behind, 

Be sure to spare no public rapine, 1435 

On all emergencies that happen ; 

For 'tis as easy to supplant 

Authority, as men in want ; 

As some of us, in trusts, have made 

The one hand with the other trade ; 1440 

1 In addition to the four great monarchies which have appeared in the 
world, some of the enthusiasts thought that Christ was to reign temporally 
upon earth, and to estahlish a fifth monarchy. See Butler's " Character of 
a Fifth Monarchy man." The Book of Daniel speaks of four great earthly 
monarchies, and of one other, not earthly, to succeed them ; hence the name 
"Fifth Monarchy." The Oxford divines have in recent days adopted this 
classification. Dr Lightfoot took a different view of the fifth monarchy, and 
declares in his sermon, preached Nov. 5th, 1669, that it means " the king- 
dom of the devil." 

3 The sectaries of those days talked more familiarly to Almighty God 
than they dared to do to a superior officer : they remonstrated with him, 
made him author of all their wicked machinations, and, if their projects 
failed, they said that Providence had revolted from them. See note at 
page 65. 

3 Tum'd here signifies "would turn." 



384 HTTDIBEAS. [PABT III 

G-ain'd vastly by their joint endeavour, 

The right a thief, the left receiver ; 

And what the one, by tricks, forestall' d, 

The other, by as sly, retail' d. 

For gain has wonderful effects 1445 

T' improve the factory of sects ; 

The Bule of Faith in all professions, 

And great Diana of th' Ephesians ; l 

"Whence turning of religion's made 

The means to turn and wind a trade. 1450 

And though some change it for the worse. 

They put themselves into a course, 

And draw in store of customers, 

To thrive the better in commerce : 

For all religions flock together, 1455 

Like tame and wild fowl of a feather : 

To nab the itches of their sects, 

As jades do one another's necks. 

Hence 'tis hypocrisy as well 

Will serve t' improve a church, as zeal ; 14.60 

As persecution or promotion, 

Do equally advance devotion. 

Let bus'ness, like ill watches, go 

Sometime too fast, sometime too slow ; 

For things in order are put out 1465 

So easy, ease itself will do 't : 

But when the feat's design' d and meant, 

What miracle can bar th' event ? 

For 'tis more easy to betray, 

Than ruin any other way. 1470 

All possible occasions start, 

The weightiest matters to divert ; 

Obstruct, perplex, distract, entangle, 

And lay perpetual trains to wrangle. 2 

But in affairs of less import, 1475 

That neither do us good nor hurt, 

Aud they receive as little by, 

Out-fawn as much, and out-comply, 

1 Acts xix. 28. 

2 Exactly the advice given in Aristophanes, Eqnites, v. 214/ 



CA>-TO IT.] HTJDIBEAS. 3S5 

And seem as scrupulously just, 

To bait our hooks for greater trust. 1480 

. But still be careful to cry down 
All public actions, tho' our own ; 
Tbe least miscarriage aggravate, 
And charge it all upon the state : 
Express the horrid'st detestation, 1485 

And pity the distracted nation ; 
Tell stories scandalous and false, 
I' th' proper language of cabals, 
Where all a subtle statesman says, 
Is half in words, and half in face ; 1490 

As Spaniards talk in dialogues 
Of heads and shoulders, nods and shrugs : 
Entrust it under solemn vows 
Of mum, and silence, and the rose, 1 
To be retad'd again in whispers, 1495 

Eor th' easy credulous to disperse. 

Thus far the statesman — When a shout, 
Heard at a distance, put him out ; 
And strait another, all aghast, 

Eush'd in with equal fear and haste, 1500 

Who star'd about, as pale as death, 
And, for a while, as out of breath, 
Till, having gather' d up his wits, 
He thus began his tale by fits : ' 2 

That beastly rabble — that came down 1605 

Erom all the garrets — in the town, 
And stalls, and shop-boards — in vast swarms, 
With new-chalk'd bills — and rusty arms, 

1 'When anything was said in confidence, the speaker in conclusion ge- 
nerally used the word mum, or silence. Mian, in the first sense, means 
mask, whence in its secondary meaning comes secrecy or concealment. Sub 
rosd (under the rose) had the same meaning ; whence, in rooms designed 
for convivial meetings, it was customary to place a rose above the table, to 
signify that anything there spoken ought never to be divulged. A rose 
was frequently painted on ceilings, both in England and Germany. See 
Brand's Antiquities (Bohn's Edit.), vol. ii. p. 345, et seq. 

2 This was Sir Martin Noel, who, while the Cabal was sitting, brought 
the unpalatable news that the Rump Parliament was dismissed, the secluded 
members admitted into the House by Monk, and that the mob of London 
testified their approval of the measure by burning the Rump in effigy. 

2c 



386 HTTDIBEAS. [PABT III. 

To cry the Cause — up, heretofore, 

Aud bawl the bishops — out of door ; 1510 

Are now drawn up — in greater shoals, 

To roast — and broil us on the coals, 

And all the grandees — of our members 

Are carbonading— on the embers ; 

Knights, citizens, aud burgesses — 1515 

Held forth by Bumps — of pigs and geese, 

That serve for characters — and badges 

To represent their personages. 

Each bonfire is a funeral pile, 

In which they roast, and scorch, and broil, 1520 

And ev'ry representative 

Have vow'd to roast — and broil alive : 

And 'tis a miracle we are not 

Already sacrific'd incarnate ; 

For while we wrangle here, and jar, 1525 

We 're grillied all at Temple-Bar ; 

Some, on the sign-post of an ale-house, 

Hang in effigy, on the gallows, 

Made up of rags to personate 

Bespective officers of state ; 1530 

That, henceforth, they may stand reputed, 

Proscrib'd in law, and executed, 

And, while the work is carrying on, 

Be ready listed under Dun, 

That worthy patriot, once the bellows, 1535 

And tinder-box of all his fellows ; l 

1 Dun was at that time the common hangman, and succeeding executioners 
went by his name, till eclipsed by Jack Ketch. But the character here deline- 
ated was certainly intended for Sir Arthur Hazlerig, knight of the shire, in 
the Long Parliament, for the county of Leicester, and one of the five 
members of the House of Commons whom the king attempted to seize in the 
House. He brought in the bill of attainder against the Earl of Strafford, 
and the bill against Episcopacy ; though the latter was delivered by Sir 
Edward Peering at his procurement. He also brought in the bill for the 
Militia. He was one of the Rump ; and a little before this time, when the 
Committee of Safety had been set up, and the Rump excluded, he had 
seized Portsmouth for their use. It is probable that Butler might call Sir 
Arthur by the hangman's name, for his forwardness and zeal in Parliament 
in bringing the royalists and the king himself to execution. Before Monk's 
intentions were known, Hazlerig, in a conversation with him, said, " I see 
which way things are going ; monarchy will be restored ; and then I know 



CAXTO II.] HUDIBEAS. 387 

The activ'st member of the five, 
As well as the most primitive ; 
"Who, for his faithful service then, 
Is chosen for a fifth agen : 154 J 

Eor since the state has made a quint 
Of generals, he's listed in't. 1 
This worthy, as the world will say, 
Is paid in specie, his own way ; 

For, moulded to the life, in clouts, 1545 

They've pick'd from dunghills hereabouts, 
He's mounted on a hazel bavin 2 
A cropp'd malignant baker gave 'em ; 3 
And to the largest bonfire riding, 
They've roasted Cook already, 4 and Pride in ; 5 1550 
• On whom, in equipage and state, 

His scare-crow fellow-members wait, 

And march in order, two and two, 

As at thanksgivings th' us'd to do ; 

Each in a tatter' d talisman, 1555 

Like vermin in effigy slain. 

But, what's more dreadful than the rest, 
Those Rumps are but the Tail o' th' beast, 

what will become of me." "Pooh! " replied Monk, "I will secure you for 
two-pence." In no long time after, when the secret was out, Hazlerig 
sent Monk a letter, with two-pence enclosed. See Clarendon' s State Papers, 
vol. iii. Sir Arthur enlisted many soldiers, and had a regiment called his 
Lobsters. 

1 Quint, that is, a quorum of five. After the death of Cromwell, and the 
deposition of Eichard, the government of the army was put into the hands 
of seven commissioners, of whom Hazlerig was one. And in 1659, Monk, 
Hazlerig, "Walton, Morley, and Alured, were appointed commissioners to 
govern the army. 

2 A hazel faggot, such as bakers heat their ovens with ; a joke on the 
name Hazlerig. 

3 Pillory, and cropping the ears, was a punishment inflicted on bakers 
who made bad bread or gave short weight. Malignants was the name ap- 
plied to the royalists. 

4 Cook was solicitor at the king's trial, and drew up the charges against 
him. Clarendon allows him to have been a man of abilities. His defence at 
his own trial was bold and manly, claiming exemption from responsibility 
on professional grounds ; stating that he had merely acted as a lawyer, 
taken a fee, and pleaded from a brief. He was hanged at Tyburn. PriJo 
and his " Purge" have been spoken of before. 

5 In the early editions, " Pride-m." 

2 c 2 



388 HUDIBRAS. [PART III. 

Set up by popish engineers, 

As by the crackers plainly appears ; 15 Go 

For none but Jesuits have a mission 

To preach the faith with ammunition, 

And propagate the church with powder ; 

Their founder was a blown-up soldier. 1 

Those spiritual pioneers o' th whore's, 1565 

That have the charge of all her stores ; 

Since first they fail'd in their designs, 2 

To take in heav'n by springing mines, 

And, with unanswerable barrels 

Of gunpowder, dispute their quarrels, 1570 

Now take a course more practicable, 

By laying trains to fire the rabble, 

And blow us up, in th' open streets, 

Disguis'd in Bumps, like Sambenites, 3 

More like to ruin and confound, 1575 

Than all their doctrines under-ground. 

Nor have they chosen Bumps amiss, 4 

For symbols of state-mysteries ; 

Tho' some suppose, 'twas but to show 

How much they scorn'd the saints, the Few, 1580 

"Who, 'cause they're wasted to the stumps, 

Are represented best by Bumps. 5 

But Jesuits have deeper reaches 

In all their politic far-fetches ; 

And from the Coptic priest, Kircherus, 6 1585 

Found out this mystic way to jeer us : 7 

1 Ignatius . Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesuits, was bred a soldier, 
and wounded at the siege of Pampeluna by the French, in 1521. See 
note on line 606, above. 

* Alluding to the Gunpowder Plot, attributed to the Jesuits, the defeat 
of which is celebrated on Nov. 5, to this day ; but the prayers and thanks- 
giving have just been abolished, and expunged from the liturgy, by Royal 
ordinance. 

3 Persons wearing the sambenito : a straight yellow coat without sleeves, 
having the picture of the devil painted upon it in black, wherein the 
officers of the Inquisition used to disguise and parade heretics after their 
condemnation. 

4 See A speech made at the Rota. Remains, vol. i. page 320. 

5 They were called the Rump Parliament, as being the end of a body. 

6 The early editions spell this name thus : Kirkerus. 

7 Athanasius Kircher, a Jesuit, wrote many books on the antiquities jf 



CANTO II.] HTJDIBEAS. 389 

For, as the Egyptians us'd by bees 

T' express their antique Ptolemies, 

And by their stings, the swords they wore, 1 

Held forth authority and pow'r; 1590 

Because these subtle animals 

Bear all their int'rests in their tails ; 

And when they're once impair'd in that, 

Are banish' d their well-order'd state : 

They thought all governments were best 1505 

By hieroglyphic Bumps exprest. 

For as in bodies natural, 

The Bump's the fundament of all ; 

So, in a commonwealth or realm, 

The government is called the helm ; 160 J 

"With which, like vessels under sail, 

They're turn'd and winded by the tail. 

The tail, which birds and fishes steer 

Their courses with, thro' sea and air ; 

To whom the rudder of the rump is 1605 

The same thing with the stern and compass, 

This shows, how perfectly the rump 

And commonwealth in nature jump. 

For as a fly that goes to bed, 

Bests with his tail above his head,* 1610 

So, in this mongrel state of ours, 

The rabble are the supreme powers, 

That hors'd us on their backs, to show us 

A jadish trick at last, and throw us. 

The learned Babbins of the Jews 1615 

"Write, there's a bone, which they call luez, 3 

Egypt ; one of them is called CEdipus Egyptiacus, for ■which he says he 
studied the Egyptian mysteries twenty years. The Copts were the primitive 
Christians of Egypt. 

1 The Egyptians anciently represented their kings under the emblem ot 
a bee, which has the power of dispensing benefits and inflicting punishments 
by its honey and its sting ; though the poet dwells most on the energy which 
it bears in its tail : so the citizens of London significantly represented this 
fag-end of a Parliament by the rumps, or tail-parts, of sheep and other 
animals. Some late editions read, ancient Ptolemies. See Butler's Re- 
mains, "A speech in the Rota." 

2 Alluding to the position flies take up, on walls. 

3 Eben Ezra, and Manasseh Ben Israel, taught that there is a bone in 
the rump of a man (that is, in the lower end of the back-bone) of the size 



390 HTTDIBEAS. [PAET III 

I' th' rump of man, of such a virtue, 

No force in nature can do hurt to ; 

And therefore, at the last great day, 

All th' other members shall, they say, >620 

Spring out of this, as from a seed 

All sorts of vegetals proceed ; 

From whence the learned sons of art 

Os sacrum justly style that part : l 

Then what can better represent, 1625 

Than this rump-bone, the Parliament ? 

That after sev'ral rude ejections, 

And as prodigious resurrections, 

"With new reversions of nine lives, 

Starts up, and, like a cat, revives ? 2 1630 

and shape of half a pea ; from which, as from an incorruptible seed, the 
whole man would be perfectly formed at the resurrection. Remains, vol. 
i. p. 320. The rabbins found their wild conjectures on Genesis xlviii. 
2, 3. See Agrippa de occulta philosophic, 1. i. c. 20. Buxtorf, in his 
Chaldean Dictionary, under the word Luz, says, it is the name of a human 
bone, which the Jews look upon as incorruptible. In a book called Bre- 
shith Rabboth, sect. 28, it is asserted that Adrian, reducing the bones 
to powder, asked the rabbin Jehoshuang (Jesuah the son of Hanniah) 
how God would raise man at the day of judgment: from the Luz, re- 
plied the rabbin : how do you know it ? says Adrian : bring me one, and 
you shall see, says Jehoshuang : one was produced, and all methods, by fire, 
pounding, and other methods tried, but in vain. See Manasseh Ben-Israel 
de Resurrectione, lib. ii. cap. 15. See also Butler's Remains, " Speech in 
the Rota." 

1 The lowest of the vertebra?, or rather the bone below the vertebrae, is 
so called ; not for the reason wittily assigned by our poet, but because it 
is much bigger than any of the vertebra?. 

2 The Rump, properly so called, began at "Pride's Purge, a little before 
the king's death ; and had the supreme authority for about five years ; being 
turned out on April 23, 1653, by Cromwell. After his death, and the de- 
position of his son Richard, the Rump Parliament was restored by Lambert 
and other officers ot the army, on May 7, 1059, in number about forty- 
two, the excluded members not being permitted to sit. On October 13, in 
the same year, they were dismissed by those who had summoned them, and 
the officers chose a Committee of Safety of twenty-three persons ; who ad- 
ministered the affairs of government till December 20, when, finding them- 
selves generally hated and slighted, and wanting money to pay the soldiers, 
Fleetwood and others desired the Rump to return to the exercise of their 
trust. At length, by means of General Monk, above eighty of the old se- 
cluded members resumed their places in the House ; upon which most of 
the Rumpers quitted it. Butler, in his Genuine Remains, vol. i. p. 320, 
says, " Nothing can bear a nearer resemblance to the luz, or rump-bone of 
the ancient rabbins, than the present Parliament, that has been so many 



CAUTO II.] HUDIBBAa. 391 

But now, alas l^fney're all expir'd, 

And tli' House, as -well as members, fir' J , 

Consum'd in kennels by tbe rout, 

"With which they other fires put out ; 

Condemn'd t' ungoverning distress, 1635 

And paltry private wretchedness ; 

Worse than the devd to privation, 

Beyond all hopes of restoration ; 

And parted, like the body and soul, 

From all dominion and control. 164.) 

"We, who could lately, with a look, 

Enact, establish, or revoke, 

"Whose arbitrary nods gave law, 

And frowns kept multitudes in awe ; 

Before the bluster of whose huff, 1645 

All hats, as in a storm, flew off; 

Ador'd and bow'd to by the great, 

Down to the footman and valet ; 

Had more bent knees than chapel mats, 

And prayers than the crowns of hats, 1650 

Shall now be scorn'd as wretchedly : 

For ruin's just as low as high ; 

"Which might be suffer'd, were it all 

The horror that attends our fall : 

For some of us have scores more large 1655 

Than heads and quarters can discharge ; l 

And others, who, by restless scraping, 

With public frauds, and private rapine, 

Have mighty heaps of wealth amass' d, 

Would gladly lay down all at last ; 1663 

And, to be but undone, entail 

Their vessels on perpetual jail, 2 
years dead, and rotten under ground, to any man's thinking, that the ghosts 
of some of the members thereof have transmigrated into other parliaments, 
and some into those parts from whence there is no redemption, should, 
nevertheless, at two several and respective resurrections start up, like the 
dragon's teeth that were sown, into living, natural, and carnal members. 
And hence it is, I suppose, that the physicians and anatomists call this bone 
os sacrum, or the holy bone." 

1 Alluding to the common punishments of high treason ; noblemen being 
beheaded, and others hung, drawn, and quartered. 

2 This commutation was accepted by some of the Regicides at the Re- 
storation. 






392 HUDIBBAS. [PAET III. 

And bless the devil to let them farms 
Of forfeit souls, on no worse terms. 

This said, a near and louder shout 1665 

Put all th' assembly to the rout, 1 
"Who now began t' out-run their fear, 
As horses do, from those they bear ; 
But crowded on with so much haste, 
Until they'd block'd the passage fast, 1670 

And barricado'd it with haunches 
Of outward men, and bulks and paunches, 
That with their shoulders strove to squeeze, 
And rather save a crippled piece 
Of all their crush'd and broken members, 1675 

Than have them grillied on the embers ; 
Still pressing on with heavy packs 
Of one another on their backs, 
The van-guard could no longer bear 
The charges of the forlorn rear, 1680 

But, borne down headlong by the rout, 
"Were trampled sorely under foot ; 
Tet nothing prov'd so formidable, 
As th' horrid cook'ry of the rabble : 2 
And fear, that keeps all feeling out, 1685 

As lesser pains are by the gout, 

1 When Sir Martin came to the Cabal, he left the rabble at Temple-bar, 
but by the time he had concluded his discourse, they had reached Whitehall. 
This alarmed our Caballers and they made a precipitate retreat, apprehensive 
lest they should be hanged in reality, as they had been in effigy. 

2 The following very graphic account of this popular burning and roast- 
ing of the Rumps is given by Pepys, who happened to be going through the 
streets at the time. " In Cheapside there were a great many bonfires, and 
Bow-bells, and all the bells in all the churches, as we went home were a- 
ringing. Hence we went homewards, it being about ten at night. But the 
common joy that was everywhere to be seen ! The number of bonfires, there 
being fourteen between St Dunstan's and Temple-bar, and at Strand Bridge 
[a bridge which spanned the Strand close to the east end of Catherine-street, 
where a small stream ran down from the fields into the Thames near Somer- 
set HouseJ I could tell at one time thirty-one fires ; in King-street seven or 
eight ; and all along, burning, and roasting, and drinking of Bumps ; there 
being rumps tied upon sticks, and carried up and down. The butchers at 
the maypoles in the Strand rang a peal with their knives when they were 
going to sacrifice their rump. On Ludgate-hill there was one turning of the 
spit that had a rump tied to it, and another basting of it. Indeed, it was 
past imagination, both the greatness and the suddenness of it. At one end 



CANTO II.] 



393 



Reliev'd 'em witK fresh supply 

Of rallied force, enough to fly, 

And beat a Tuscan running horse, 

"Whose jockey-rider is all spurs. 1 1690 

of the street you would think there was a whole lane of fire, and so hot that 
we were fain to keep on the other side." See Pepys' Memoirs, vol. i. p 22 
(Bonn sedition). r " 

1 Kaces of this kind are practised both on the Corso at Rome, and at 
Florence At Rome, in the carnival, a number of horses are trained on 
purpose tor this diversion. They are drawn up a-breast in the Piazza del 
Popolo ; and certain balls, with little sharp spikes, are hum? along their 
rumps, which serve to spur them on as soon as they begin to ran 



w£;'^;..'.- :.:^ii 






ft? 








PART III. CANTO III. 




ARGUMENT. 



The Knight and Squire's prodigious flight 
To quit th' enchanted bow'r by night : 
He plods to turn his amorous suit, 
T' a plea in law, and prosecute : 
Repairs to counsel, to advise 
'Bout managing the enterprise ; 
But first resolves to try by letter, 
And one l more fair address, to get her. 

1 The early editions read, "once" more. 



PART III. CANTO III. 




' HO would believe what strange bugbears 
Mankind creates itself, of fears, 
That spring, like fern, that insect weed, 
Equivocally, without seed, 1 
^ And have no possible foundation, 5 

But merely in th' imagination ? 
And yet can do more dreadful feats 
Than hags, with all their imps and teats ; 2 
Make more bewitch and haunt themselves, 
Than all their nurseries of elves. 13 

For fear does things so like a witch, 
'Tis hard t' unriddle which is which ; 
Sets up communities of senses, 
To chop and change intelligences ; 
As Rosicrucian virtuosos 15 

Can see with ears, and hear with noses ; 3 



1 He calls it an insect weed, on the supposition of its being bred, as many 
insects were thought to be, by what was called equivocal, or spontaneous, 
generation. Ferns have seeds so small as to be almost invisible to the naked 
eye ; whence the ancients held them to be without seed. Our ancestors, 
believing that the seed of this plant was invisible, reported that those who 
possessed the secret of wearing it about them would become likewise in- 
visible. Shakspeare registers this notion, no doubt banteringly, in his 
Henry IV. Part I. Gadshill, — We steal as in a castle, cock-sure ; we have 
the receipt of fern-seed, we walk invisible. 

2 Alluding to common superstitions about witches. 

3 Grey calls this a banter on the Marquis of Worcester's century of in- 
ventions ; amongst which is one entitled, " how to write by the smell, the 
touch, or the taste, as distinctly and unconfusedly, yea, as readily, as by the 
sight." Butler, in his Eemains, says : " This is an art to teach men to see 
with their ears, and hear with their eyes and noses, as it has been found true 
by experience and demonstration, if we may believe the history of the Spani- 
ard, that could see words, and swallow music by holding the peg of a fiddle 
between his teeth ; or him that could sing his part backward at first sight, 



396 HUDIBEAS. [PAET III. 

And when they neither see nor hear, 

Have more than both supplied by fear, 

That makes them in the dark see visions, 

And hag themselves with apparitions ; 20 

And when their eyes discover least, 

Discern the subtlest object best ; 

Do things not contrary alone 

To th' course of nature, but its own ; 

The courage of the bravest daunt, 25 

And turn poltroons as valiant : 

For men as resolute appear 

With too much, as too little fear ; 

And, when they're out of hopes of flying, 

Will run away from death, by dying ; 30 

Or turn again to stand it out, 

And those they fled, like lions, rout. 

This Hudibras had prov'd too true, 
Who, by the furies, left perdue, 
And haunted with detachments, sent 35 

From Marshal Legion's regiment, 1 
Was by a fiend, as counterfeit, 
Reliev'd and rescu'd with a cheat, 
When nothing but himself, and fear, 
Was both the imps and conjurer ; 2 40 

As by the rules o' th' virtuosi, 
It follows in due form of poesie. 

Disguis'd in all the masks of night, 
We left our champion on his flight, 

which those that were near him might hear with their noses." See Ee- 
mains, vol. ii. p. 245. Nash thinks that Butler probably meant to ridicule 
Sir Kenelm Digby, who in his " Treatise on the Nature of Bodies," tells the 
story of a Spanish nobleman "who could hear by his eyes and see words." 

1 Grey supposes that Stephen Marshal, a famous Presbyterian preacher, 
who dealt largely in hell and damnation, and was called the Geneva Bull, 
is here intended. But Nash thinks that the word marshal is a title of of- 
fice and rank, not the name of any particular man, and that legion is used 
for the name, of a leader, or captain of a company of devils. The meaning 
is, that the Knight was haunted by a crew of devils, such as that in the 
Gospel, which obtained the name of Legion, because they were many. 

2 The poet, with great wit, rallies the imaginary and groundless fears 
which possess some persons : and from whence proceed the tales of ghosts 
and apparitions, imps, conjurers, and witches. 






CA>"TO III.] HUDIBEAS. 397 

At blindman's buff to grope bis way, 4o 

In equal fear of night and day ; 

Who took bis dark and desp'rate course, 

He knew no better than bis horse ; 

And by an unknown devil led, 1 

He knew as little whither, fled. 50 

He never was in greater need, 

JSTor less capacity of speed ; 

Disabled, both in man and beast, 

To fly and run away, bis best ; 

To keep the enemy, and fear, 55 

From equal falling on his rear. 

And though, with kicks and bangs be ply'd, 

The further and the nearer side ; 

As seamen ride with all their force, 

And tug as if they row'd the horse, 60 

And when the hackney sails most swift, 

Believe they lag, or run a-drift ; 

So, tho' he posted e'er so fast, 

His fear was greater than his haste : 

For fear, though fleeter than the wind, 65 

Believes 'tis always left behind. 

But when the morn began t' appear, 2 

And shift t' another scene bis fear, 

He found bis new officious shade, 

That came so timely to his aid, 70 

And forc'd him from the foe t' escape, 

Had turn'd itself to Balpho's shape, 

So like in person, garb, and pitch, 

'Twas hard t' interpret which was which. 

For Ealpbo had no sooner told 75 

The lady all he had t' unfold. 
But she convey'd 3 him out of sight, 
To entertain th' approaching Knight ; 

1 It was Ralpho who, though unknown, conveyed the Knight out of the 
widow's house. 

2 We have now arrived at the third day of the notion of the poem. From 
the opening of these adventures every morning and night has been poeti- 
cally described. 

3 Var. convoy' d him, in the editions before 1684. 



398 HUDIBKAS. [PART III. 

And while he gave himself diversion, 
T' accommodate his beast and person, 80 

And put his beard into a posture 
At best advantage to accost her, 
She order' d th' anti-masquerade, 
For his reception, aforesaid : 

But, when the ceremony was done, 85 

The lights put out, the furies gone, 
And Hudibras, among the rest, 
Convey'd away, as Ealpho guess' d, 1 
The wretched caitiff, all alone, 

As he believ'd, began to moan, 90 

And tell his story to himself ; 
The Knight mistook him for an elf ; 
And did so still, till he began 
To scruple at Ralph's outward man, 
And thought, because they oft agreed 95 

T' appear in one another's stead, 
And act the saint's and devd's part, 
"With undistinguishable art, 
They might have done so now, perhaps, 
And put on one another's shapes ; 100 

And therefore, to resolve the doubt, 
He star'd upon him, and cry'd out, 
"What art ? my Squire, or that bold sprite 
That took his place and shape to-night ? 2 
Some busy independent Pug, 105 

Retainer to his synagogue? 

Alas ! quoth he, I'm none of those 
Tour bosom friends, as you suppose, 
But Ralph himself, your trusty Squire, 
"Who 's dragg'd your donship out o' the mire, 3 no. 

1 It is here said that Ealpho guessed his master was conveyed away, and 
that he believed himself to be all alone when he made his lamentation : but 
this must be a slip of memory in the poet, for some parts of his lamenta- 
tions are not at all applicable to his own case, but plainly designed for his 
master's hearing : such are ver. 1371, &c, of Part iii. c. i. In satirical 
poetry absolute consistency is not indispensable. 

2 Sir Hudibras, we may remember, though he had no objection to con- 
sult with evil spirits, did not speak of them with much respect. 

3 The word Don is often used to signify a knight. In the old editions 
previous to 1710 it is spelt dun; the reading here is Du?iship. 



CAKTO III.] HUDIBBAS. 399 

And from th' enchantments of a widow, 

Who 'd turn'd you int' a beast, have freed you ; 

And, tho' a prisoner of war, 

Have brought you safe, where now you are ; 

Which you wou'd gratefully repay, lis 

Tour constant Presbyterian way. 

That's stranger, quoth the Knight, and stranger ; 

Who gave thee notice of my danger ? 

Quoth he, Th' infernal conjurer 
Pur3u'd, and took me prisoner ; 120 

And, knowing you were hereabout, 
Brought me along to find you out, 
Where I, in hugger-mugger hid, 1 
Have noted all they said or did : 

And, tho' they lay to him the pageant, 125 

I did not see him nor his agent ; 
Who play'd their sorceries out of sight, 
T' avoid a fiercer second fight. 

But didst thou see no devils then ? 
Not one, quoth he, but carnal men, 130 

A little worse than fiends in hell, 
And that she-devil Jezebel, 
That laugh'd and tee-he'd with derision 
To see them take your deposition. 

What then, quoth Hudibras, was he 135 

That play'd the dev'l to examine me? 

A rallying weaver in the towu, 
That did it in a parson's gown, 
Whom all the parish take for gifted, 
But, for my part, I ne'er believ'd it : 140 

In which you told them all your feats, 
Your conscientious frauds and cheats ; 
Deny'd your whipping, and confess'd 
The naked truth of all the rest, 

More plainly than the rev'rend writer 145 

That to our churches veil'd his mitre. 2 

1 Meaning privately and without order. Thus Shakspeare, in Hamlet : 
"We've done but greenly in hugger-mugger to inter him ; poor Ophelia." 

s This character has been applied to several church dignitaries : Williams, 
Bishop of Lincoln, afterward Archbishop of York, " the pepper -nosed Caitiff 
that snuffs, puffs, and nuffs ingratitude to Parliament — a jack-a-lent made 



400 HCjJiiJltAo. [PAET III. 

AH which they took in black and white, 
And cudgell'd me to underwrite. 

What made thee, when they all were gone, 
And none but thou and I alone, 150 

To act the devil, and forbear 
To rid me of my hellish fear ? 

Quoth he, I knew your constant rate, 
And frame of sp'rit too obstinate, 
To be by me prevail'd upon, 155 

With any motives of my own : 
And therefore strove to counterfeit 
The devil awhile, to nick your wit ; 
The devil, that is your constant crony, 
That only can prevail upon ye ; 160 

Else we might still have been disputing, 
And they with weighty drubs confuting. 

The Knight, who now began to find 
They 'd left the enemy behind, 

And saw no further harm, remain, 165 

• But feeble weariness and pain, 
Perceiv'd, by losing of their way, 
They'd gain'd th' advantage of the day, 
And, by declining of the road, 

They had, by chance, their rear made good ; 170 

He ventur'd to dismiss his fear, 
That parting's wont to rant and tear, 
And give the desp'ratest attack 
To danger still behind its back : 

of a leek and red herring ; " Graham, Bishop of Orkney, who renounced his 
Bishoprick to join the Scotch covenanters ; Adair, Bishop of Kilala, who 
was deprived of his Bishoprick for speaking in favour of the covenanters ; 
and Herbert Croft, the excellent Bishop of Hereford; all of whom had 
seemed more or less to side with the Dissenters. But Nash points out a 
coincidence which fixes it on the last-named prelate. It appears that in 
1675, three years before the publication of this part of the poem, a pam- 
phlet came out, generally attributed to the Bishop of Hereford, called, 
The naked Truth, or State of the Primitive Church, a title which gives a 
striking air of probability to the supposition. In this piece the distinction 
of the three orders of the Church is flatly denied, and endeavoured to be 
disproved : the surplice, bowing towards the altar, kneeling at the sacrament, 
and other ceremonies of the Church, are condemned ; while most of the 
pleas for nonconformists are speciously and zealously supported. This 
pamphlet made a great noise at the time. 



CAyTO III.] HUDIBEAS. 401 

For having paus'd to recollect, 175 

And on his past success reflect, 

T" examine and consider why, 

And whence, and how, he came to fly, 

And when no devil had appear' d, 

What else it could be said he fear'd, 180 

It put him in so fierce a rage, 

He once resolv'd to re-engage ; 

Toss'd, like a foot-ball, back again 

With shame, and vengeance, and disdain. 

Quoth he, It was thy cowardice, 185 

That made me from this leaguer rise, 
And when I'd half reduc'd the place, 
To quit it infamously base ; 
Was better cover' d by thy new 

Arriv'd detachment, than I knew ; l 190 

To slight my new acquests, and run, 
Victoriously, from battles won ; 
And, reck'ning all I gain'd or lost, 
To sell them cheaper than they cost ; 
To make me put myself to flight, 195 

And, conqu'ring, run away by night ; 
To drag me out, which th' haughty foe 
Durst never have presum'd to do ; 
To mount me in the dark, by force, 
Upon the bare ridge of my horse. 200 

Expos'd in querpo 2 to their rage, 
Without my arms and equipage ; 

1 Here seems a defect in coherency and syntax. The Knight means, that 
it was dishonourable in him to quit the siege, especially when reinforced by 
the arrival of the Squire. 

- Querpo (from the Spanish cuerpo) signifies a close waistcoat, or 
jacket, without the customary cloak. Butler, in his MS. Common-place 
Book, says, all coats of arms were defensive, and worn upon shields ; though 
the ancient use of them is now given over, and men fight in querpo. To 
fight in querpo is synonymous to our old English phrase, to fight in buff. See 
Junii Etymologicon. The term is found in several of our early dramatists, 
e. g. " Boy, ray cloak and rapier ; it fits not a gentleman of my rank to 
walk the streets in querpo." Beaumont and Fletcher, Love's Cure, ii. 1. 
Your Spanish host is never seen in cuerpo 
"Without his paramentos, cloke, and sword. 

Ben Jonson, New Inn, II. 5. 
2 D 



402 HUVDIBRAS. [PABT III. 

Lest, if they ventur'd to pursue, 

I might th' unequal fight renew ; 

And, to preserve thy outward man, 205 

Assum'd my place, and led the van. 

Air this, quoth Ealph, I did, 'tis true, 
Not to preserve myself, but you : 
You, who were damn'd to baser drubs 
Than wretches feel in powd'ring tubs, 1 210 

To mount two-wheel' d carroches, worse 
Than managing a wooden horse ; 2 
Dragg'd out thro' straiter holes by th' ears, 
Eras'd, or coup'd for perjurers ; 3 
"Who, tho' th' attempt had prov'd in vain, 215 

Had had no reason to complain ; 
But, since it prosper'd, 'tis unhandsome 
To blame the hand that paid your ransom, 
And rescu'd your obnoxious bones 
From unavoidable battoons. 220 

The enemy was reinforc'd, 
And we disabled and unhors'd, 
Disarm'd, unqualify'd for fight, 
And no way left but hasty flight, 
Which, tho' as desp'rate in th' attempt, 225 

Has giv'n you freedom to condemn't. 
But were our bones in fit condition 
To reinforce the expedition, 
'Tis now unseasonable and vain, 

To think of falling on again : 230 

No martial project to surprise 
Can ever be attempted twice ; 
Nor cast design serve afterwards, 
As gamesters tear their losing cards. 

1 See note to line 980 of the preceding Canto, page 366. 

a Carroche properly signifies a coach, from the Italian carroccio ; but in 
burlesque it is a cart, and here means that in which criminals were carried to 
execution. At that time a coach invariably had four wheels, and a charelte, 
which preceded it, only two. Eiding the wooden-horse was a punishment 
inflicted on soldiers. 

3 Erased, in Heraldry, means a member torn or separated from the 
body, so that it looks jagged like the teeth of a saw ; couped signifies, on 
the contrary, cut off clean and smooth. The Knight had incurred the guilt of 
perjury. 



oakto ni.] 



HTTDIBRAS. 



Beside, our bangs of man and beast 
Are fit for nothing but to rest, 
And for a while will not be able 
To rally, and prove serviceable : 
And therefore I, with reason, chose 
This stratagem t' amuse our foes, 
To make an hon'rable retreat, 
And wave a total sure defeat : 
For those that fly may fight again, 
"Which he can never do that's slain. 1 



403 

235 



1 The parallel to these lines is contained in the famous couplet — 
" He that fights and runs away, 
May live to fight another day," 
•which is so commonly, but falsely, attributed to Butler, that many bets have 
been lost upon it. The sentiment appears to be as old as Demosthenes, who, 
being reproached for running away from Philip of Macedon, at the battle of 
Chseronea, replied, 'Avr/p 6 cptvywv tcai tt&Xlv /xaxvetTai. This saying of 
Demosthenes is mentioned by Jeremy Taylor, who says, "In other cases 
it is true that Demosthenes said in apology for his own escaping from a lost 
field — A man that runs away may fight again." — Great Examples, 1649. 
The same idea is found in Scarron, who died in 1660 : 
Qui fuit, peut revenir aussi ; 
Qui meurt, il n'en est pas ainsi. 
It is also found in the Satyre Menippee, published in 1594 : 

Souvent celuy qui demeure 
Est cause de son meschef ; 
Celuy qui fuit de bonne heure 
Peut combattre derechef. 

Thus rendered in an English version, published in 1595 : 

Oft he that doth abide 
Is cause of his own pain ; 
But he that flieth in good tide 
Perhaps may fight again. 
In the Latin Apothegms compiled by Erasmus, and translated into English 
by Nicholas Udall, in 1542, occur the following lines, which are obviously 
a metrical version of the saying of Demosthenes : 

That same man that renneth awaie, 
Maie again fight, an other daie. 

The Italians are supposed to have borrowed their proverb from the same 
source : E meglio che si dici qui fuggi che qui mori, Better it be said 
here he ran away than here he died. But our familiar couplet was no doubt 
derived from the following lines, Which were written by Sir John Mennis, 
in conjunction with James Smith, in the Musarum DelicicE, a collection of 
2 D 2 



404 HTJDIBEAS. [PART ITI. 

Hence timely running's no mean part 245 

Of conduct, in the martial art, 
By which some glorious feats achieve, 
As citizens by breaking thrive, 
And cannons conquer armies, while 
They seem to draw off and recoil ; 250 

.Is held the gallant'st course, and bravest, 1 
To great exploits, as well as safest ; 
That spares th' expense of time and pains, 
And dang'rous beating out of brains ; 
And, in the end, prevails as certain 255 

As those that never trust to fortune; 
But make their fear do execution 
Beyond the stoutest resolution ; 
As earthquakes kill without a blow, 
And, only trembling, overthrow. 260 

If th' ancients crown' d their bravest men 
That only sav'd a citizen, 2 . 
What victory cou'd e'er be won, 
If ev'ry one would save but one ? 
Or fight endanger'd to be lost, 265 

Where all resolve to save the most ? 
By this means, when a battle's won, 
The war's as far from being done ; 
For those that save themselves and fly, 
Go halves, at least, i' th' victory ; 270 

And sometime, when the loss is small, 3 
And danger great, they challenge all ; 

miscellaneous poems, published in 1656, and reprinted in Wit's Recreations, 
2 vols. 12mo, Lond. 1817: 

He that is in battle slain, 
Can never rise to fight again; 
But he that fights and runs away, 
May live to fight another day. 
1 Some editions read: 

'Tis held the gallant'st 

- This was the corona civica, or civic crown, which was granted to any 
soldier who had saved the life of a Roman citizen by slaying an enemy. 
Though formed of no better materials than oak twigs, it was esteemed more 
honourable than any other decoration. 
3 The early editions have "their loss." 



CAXTO III.] HTJDIBRAS. 405 

Print new additions to their feats, 

And emendations in gazettes ; x 

And when, for furious haste to run, 275 

They durst not stay to fire a gun, 

Have done 't with honfires, and at home 

Made squibs and crackers overcome ; 

To set the rabble on a flame, 

And keep their governors from blame, 230 

Disperse the news the pulpit tells, 2 

Confirm' d with fireworks and with bells : 

And tho' reduc'd to that extreme, 

They have been forc'd to sing Te Deum ; 3 

Tet, with religious blasphemy, 2S5 

By flatt'ring heaven with a lie ; 

And, for their beating, giving thanks, 

They 've raised recruits, and fill'd their banks ; 4 

1 The gazettes did not come into vogue until Charles the Second's time. 
The newspapers during the civil war and the commonwealth were called 
Mercuries and Diurnals. 

2 "In their sermons," says Burnet, "and chiefly in their prayers, all 
that passed in the state was canvassed. Men were as good as named, and 
either recommended or complained of to God, as they were odious or accept- 
able to them. At length this humour grew so petulant, that the pulpit was 
a scene of news and passion." 

3 This was the customary psalm of victory, but the Puritans did not ap- 
prove of it, as being of papistical origin. 

4 It has been an ancient and very frequent practice for the vanquished 
party in war to boast of victory, and even to ordain solemn thanksgivings, 
as means of keeping up the spirits of the people. The Parliament were said 
often to have had recourse to this artifice, and in the course of the war had 
thirty-five thanksgiving days. In the first notable encounter, at "Wickfield 
near "Worcester, September 23, 1642, their forces received a total defeat. 
Whitelock says, they were all killed or routed, and only one man lost on the 
king's side. Yet the Parliamentarians spread about printed papers, brag- 
ging of it as a complete victory, and ordained a special thanksgiving in 
London. This they did after the battle of Keynton, and the second fight 
at Newbury ; but particularly after Sir William Waller received that great 
defeat at Roundway-down, when they kept a thanksgiving at Gloucester, 
and made rejoicings for a signal victory, which they pretended he had gained 
for them. This was no new practice. See Polyasni Stratagem, lib. i. cap. 
35 and 44. — Stratocles persuaded the Athenians to offer a sacrifice to the 
gods, by way of thanks, on account of their having defeated their enemies, 
although he knew that the Athenian fleet had been defeated. When the 
truth was known, and the people became exasperated, his reply was, " What 
injury have I done you ? it is owing to me that you have spent three days in 
joy." — Catherine de Medicis used to say, that a false report, if believed for 



406 HUDIBRAS. [PAST III. 

For those who run from th' enemy, 

Engage them equally to fly ; 290 

And when the tight becomes a chase, 

Those win the day that win the race ; ! 

And that which would not pass in fights, 

Has done the feat with easy flights ; 

Recover'd many a desp'rate campaign 295 

"With Bourdeaux, Burgundy, and Champaign ; 

Eestor'd the fainting high and mighty, 

With brandy- wine, 2 and aqua-vitae ; 

And made them stoutly overcome 

"With bacrack, hoccamore, and mum ; 3 300 

Whom th' uncontrolled decrees of fate 

To victory necessitate ; 

With which, altho' they run or burn, 4 

They unavoidably return ; 

Or else their sultan populaces 305 

Still strangle all their routed bassas. 5 

three days, might save a state. Napoleon understood these tactics tho- 
roughly. See many stories of the same kind in the " General Dictionary," 
vol. x. p. 337. 

1 An old philosopher, at a drinking match, insisted that he had won the 
prize because he was first drunk. 

2 In Germany it is still called Branntwein. Aqua vita was formerly 
used in this country as a medicine only. 

3 The first is an excellent kind of Rhenish wine, called Bacharach, from 
a town of that name in the lower Palatinate, said to be derived from Bacehi 
ara, the altar of Bacchus. Hoccamore means Hochheimer, the Bhenish 
wine which first became familiarly known in this country, whence all the 
others obtained, though improperly, the name of Hock. Mum is a rich, strong 
beer, made in Brunswick, and called Braunschweig er Mumme. It had great 
reputation everywhere, and is said to have been introduced into this country 
by General Monk. The invention of it is attributed by some to Christopher 
Mumme, in 1489, but it seems not unlikely to have derived its name from 
its being a delicious beer used on feast-days and holidays, or Mummen, the 
old German word for revels, whence our term mummeries. A receipt for 
making it is preserved in the Harleian Miscellany, vol. i. p. 524. This signi- 
fication of Mum seems to have nothing in common with that indicating si- 
lence, explaiued in a previous note. 

4 That is, though they run away, or their ships are fired. See v. 308. 
This may refer to the repulse of Popham at Kinsale, which he had expected 
to take by bribing the royalist commander, who having received the bribe, 
nevertheless resisted, and with success, the attack of the Parliament's fleet 
and army. 

5 The mob, like the sultan or grand seignior, seldom fail to strangle any 
of their commanders, called Bassas, if they prove unsuccessful ; thus "Waller 



CA.:s*TO III.] HUDIBEAS. 407 

Quoth Hudibras, I understand 
"What fights thou mean'st at sea and land, 
And who those were that run away, 
And yet gave out they 'd won the day : 310 

Altho' the rabble sous'd them for 't, 
O'er head and ears, in mud and dirt. 
'Tis true our modern way of war 
Is grown more politic by far, 1 

But not so resolute and bold, 315 

Nor tied to honour, as the old. 
For now they laugh at giving battle, 
Unless it be to herds of cattle ; 
Or fighting convoys of provision, 
The whole design o' th' expedition, 320 

And not with downright blows to rout 
The enemy, but eat them out : 
As fighting, in all beasts of prey, 
And eating, are perform'd one way, 
To give defiance to their teeth, 325 

And fight their stubborn guts 2 to death ; 

was neglected after the battle of Roundway-down, called by the wits Run- 
away-down. 

1 Butler's unpublished Common-place Book has the following lines on 
" The modern way of war." 

For fighting now is out of mode, 
And stratagem's the only road ; 
Unless in th' out-of-fashion wars, 
Of barb'rous Turks and Polanders. 
All feats of arms are now reduc'd 
To chousing, or to being chous'd; 
They fight not now to overthrow, 
But gull, or circumvent a foe. 
And watch all small advantages 
As if they fought a game at chess ;. 
And he's approv'd the most deserving 
"Who longest can hold out at starving. 
Who makes best fricasees of cats, 

Of frogs and , and mice and rats ; 

Pottage of vermin, and ragoos 
Of trunks and boxes, and old shoes. 
And those who, like th' immortal gods, 
Do never eat, have still the odds. 



2 Later editions read, the others' stomachs. 



I 



408 HTTDIBRAS. [PART III. 

And those achieve the high'st renown, 

That bring the other stomachs down. 

There's now no fear of wounds nor maiming, 

All dangers are reduc'd to famine, 330 

And feats of arms to plot, design, 

Surprise, and stratagem, and mine ; 

But have no need nor use of courage, 

Unless it be for glory, 'r forage : 

For if they fight 'tis but by chance, 335 

"When one side vent'ring to advance, 

And come uncivilly too near, 

Are charg'd unmercifully i' th' rear, 

And forc'd, with terrible resistance, 

To keep hereafter at a distance, 340 

To pick out ground t' encamp upon, 

"Where store of largest rivers run, 

That serve, instead of peaceful barriers, 

To part th' engagements of their warriors ; 

Where both from side to side may skip, 345 

And only encounter at bo-peep : 

For men are found the stouter-hearted, 

The certainer they 're to be parted, 

And therefore post themselves in bogs, 

As th' ancient mice attack' d the 

And made their mortal enemy, 

The water-rat, their great ally. 2 

For 'tis not now, who's stout and bold ? 

But, who bears hunger best, and cold ? 3 

And he's approv'd the most deserving, 355 

AVho longest can hold out at starving ; 

But he that routs most pigs and cows, 

The formidablest man of prow'ss. 4 

1 Alluding to Homer's Batrachomyoniachia, or Battle of the Frogs and 
Mice. 

2 Meaning the Dutch, who were allies of the Parliamentarians. 

3 An ordinance was passed March 26, 1644, for the contribution of one 
meal a week toward the charge of the army. 

4 A sneer, perhaps, on Venables and Pen, who were unfortunate in their 
expedition against the Spaniards at St Domingo, in the year 1655. It is 
observed of them, that they exercised their valour only on horses, asses, and 
such like, making a slaughter of all they met, greedily devouring skins, en- 



0A2TT0 III.] HTJDIBRAS. 409 

So th' emperor Caligula, 

That triumph' d o'er the British sea, 1 360 

Took crahs aud oysters prisoners, 

And lobsters, 'stead of cuirassiers, 2 

Engag'd his legions in fierce bustles 

With periwinkles, prawns, and muscles, 

And led his troops with furious gallops, 365 

To charge whole regiments of scallops ; 

Not like their ancient way of war, 

To wait on his triumphal car ; 

But when he went to dine or sup, 

More bravely ate his captives up, 370 

And left all war. by his example, 

Reduc'd to vict'liug of a camp well. 

Quoth Ealph, By all that you have said, 
And twice as much that I cou'd add, 
'Tis plain you cannot now do worse 375 

Than take this out-of-fashion'd course ; 
To hope, by stratagem, to woo her ; 
Or waging battle to subdue her ; 
Tho' some have done it in romances, 
And bang'd them into am'rous fancies ; 380 

As those who won the Amazons, 
By wanton drubbing of their bones ; 
And stout Binaldo gain'd his bride 3 
By courting of her back and side. 

trails, and all, to satiate their hunger. See Harleian Miscellany, vol. iii. 
No. xii. p. 494, 498. 

1 Caligula, having ranged his army on the sea-shore, and disposed his in- 
struments of war in the order of battle, on a sudden ordered his men to ga- 
ther up the shells on the strand, and fill their helmets and bosoms with them, 
calling them the spoils of the ocean, as if by that proceeding he had made 
a conquest of the British sea. Suetonius, Life of Caligula. 

2 Sir Arthur Hazelrig had a regiment nicknamed his lobsters ; and it has 
been thought by some, that the defeat at Roundway-down was owing to the 
ill-behaviour of this regiment. Cleveland, in his character of a London 
diurnal, says of it : " This is the "William which is the city's champion, and 
the diurnal's delight. Yet, in all this triumph, translate the scene but at 
Roundway-down, Hazelrig's lobsters were turned into crabs, and crawled 
backwards." 

3 Rinaldo is hero of the last book of Tasso ; but he did not win his Ar- 
mida thus ; perhaps the poet, quoting by memory, intended to mention 
Ruggiero in Ariosto. See also Midsummer Night's Dream. 



410 HUDIBEAS. [PART III. 

But since those times and feats are over, 385 

They are not for a modern lover, 

When mistresses are too cross-grain'd, 

By such addresses to be gain'd ; 

And if they were, would have it out 

With many another kind of bout. 390 

Therefore I hold no course s' infeasible, 

As this of force, to win the Jezebel, 

To storm her heart by th' antic charms 

Of ladies errant, force of arms ; 

But rather strive by law to win her, 395 

And try the title you have in her. 

Tour case is clear, you have her word, 

And me to witness the accord ; l 

Besides two more of her retinue 

To testify what pass'd between you ; 400 

More probable, and like to hold, 

Than hand, or seal, or breaking gold, 2 

For which so many that renounc'd 

Their plighted contracts have been trounc'd, 

And bills upon record been found, 405 

That forc'd the ladies to compound ; 

And that, unless I miss the matter, 

Is all the bus'ness you look after. 

Besides, encounters at the bar 

Are braver now than those in war, 410 

In which the law does execution 

With less disorder and confusion ; 

Has more of honour in 't, some hold, 

Not like the new way, but the old, 3 

When those the pen had drawn together, 415 

Decided quarrels with the feather, 

And winged arrows kill'd as dead, 

And more than bullets now of lead : 

So all their combats now, as then, 

Are manag'd chiefly by the pen ; 420 

1 Ealpho, no doubt, was ready to witness anything that would serve his 
turn ; and hoped the widow's two attendants would do the same. 

2 The breaking of a piece of gold between lovers was formerly much 
practised, and looked upon as a firm marriage contract. 

3 Ealpho persuades the Knight to gain the widow, at least her fortune, 
not by the use of fire-arms, but by the feathered quill of the lawyer. 



CANTO III.] HTJDIBEAS. 411 

That does the feat, with braver vigours, 

In words at length, as well as figures ; 

Is judge of all the world performs 

In voluntary feats of arms, 

And whatsoe'er 's achiev'd in fight, 425 

Determines which is wrong or right ; 

For whether you prevail, or lose, 

All must be try'd there in the close ; 

And therefore 'tis not wise to shun 

What you must trust to ere ye 've done. 430 

The law that settles all you do, 

And marries where you did but woo ; 

That makes the most perfidious lover, 

A lady, that's as false, recover ; l 

And if it judge upon your side, 435 

Will soon extend her for your bride, 2 

And put her person, goods, or lands, 

Or which you like best, into your hands. 

For law's the wisdom of all ages, 

And manag'd by the ablest sages, 440 

Who, tho' their bus'ness at the bar 

Be but a kind of civil war, 

In which th' engage with fiercer dungeons 

Than e'er the Grecians did, and Trojans ; 

They never manage the contest 445 

T' impair their public interest, 

Or by their controversies lessen 

The dignity of their profession ; 

Not like us brethren, who divide 

Our commonwealth, the Cause, and side ; 3 450 

And tho' we 're all as near of kindred 

As th' outward man is to the inward, 

We agree in nothing, but to wrangle 

About the slightest fingle-fangle, 

1 That is, the law will recover a lady though she be as false as the most 
perfidious lover. 

2 Meaning to levy an extent upon the lady : seize her for your use in sa- 
tisfaction of the debt. 

3 Take part on one side or the other. Whereas we who have a common 
interest, a common cause, a common party against the Royalists and Episco- 
palians, weaken our strength by internal divisions among ourselves 



412 HTTDIBBAS. [PART III. 

"While lawyers have more sober sense, 455 

Than t' argue at their own expense, 1 

But make their best advantages 

Of others' quarrels, like the Swiss ; 2 

And out of foreign controversies, 

By aiding both sides, fill their purses ; 4,60 

But have no int'rest in the Cause 

For which th' engage and wage the laws, 

Nor further prospect than their pay, 

Whether they lose or win the day. 

And tho' th' abounded in all ages, 465 

"With sundry learned clerks and sages ; 

Tho' all their bus'ness be dispute, 

With which they canvass ev'ry suit, 

They 've no disputes about their art, 

Nor in polemics controvert ; 470 

While all professions else are found 

With nothing but disputes t' abound : 

Divines of all sorts, and physicians, 

Philosophers, mathematicians ; 

The G-alenist, and Paracelsian, 475 

Condemn the way each other deals in ; 3 

Anatomists dissect and mangle, 

To cut themselves out work to wrangle ; 

Astrologers dispute their dreams, 

That in their sleeps they talk of schemes ; 480 

And heralds stickle, who got who, 

So many hundred years ago." 

But lawyers are too wise a nation 
T' expose their trade to disputation, 
Or make the busy rabble judges 485 

Of all their secret piques and grudges ; 

1 The wisdom of lawyers is such, that however they may seem to quar- 
rel at the har, they are good friends the moment they leave the court. Un- 
like us, Independents and Preshyterians, who, though our opinions are very 
similar, are always wrangling about the merest trifles. 

2 The Swiss mercenaries, as they are commonly called, if well paid, 
will enter into the service of any foreign power : but, according to the ad- 
age, "point d' argent, point de Suisse." 

3 The followers of Galen advocated the use of herbs and roots ; the dis- 
ciples of Paracelsus recommended mineral preparations, especially mercury. 



CA>"TO III.] HUDIBEAS. 413 

In which, whoever wins the day, 

The whole profession's sure to pay. 1 

Beside, no mountebanks, nor cheats, 

Dare undertake to do their feats, 490 

AVhen in all other sciences 

They swarm like insects, and increase. 

For what bigot 2 durst ever draw, 

By Inward Light, a deed in law ? 

Or could hold forth by Bevelation, 495 

An answer to a declaration ? 

For those that meddle with their tools, 

Will cut their fingers, if they 're fools : 

And if you follow their advice, 

In bills, and answers, and replies, 500 

They'll write a love-letter in chancery, 

Shall bring her upon oath to answer ye, 

And soon reduce her t' be your wife, 

Or make her weary of her life. 

The Knight, who us'd with tricks and shifts 605 
To edify by Ralpho's gifts, 
But in appearance cried him down, 3 
To make them better seem his own, 
All plagiaries' constant course 

Of sinking when they take a purse, 4 510 

Bosolv'd to follow his advice, 
But kept it from him by disguise ; 
And, after stubborn contradiction, 
To counterfeit his own conviction, 
And, by transition, fall upon 516 

The resolution as his own. 

Quoth he, This gambol thou advisest 
Is, of all others, the unwisest ; 
For, if I think by law to gain her, 
There's nothing sillier nor vainer, 520 

1 When lawyers quarrel, they do not suffer the public to know it ; for, 
whichever disputant might gain the advantage, the whole profession would 
suffer by the exposures made in the brawl. 

2 The accent is here laid on the last syllable of bigot. 

3 Var. cried them down in 1700 and subsequent editions. 

* Meaning that the plagiary conceals his robbery with the dexterity of a 
pickpocket. 












414 HTJDIBEAS. [PART III. 

'Tia but to hazard my pretence, 

"Where nothing's certain but th expense ; 

To act against myself, and traverse 

My suit and title to her favours ; 

And if she should, which heav'n forbid, 525 

O'erthrow me, as the fiddler did, 

What after-course have I to take, 

'Gainst losing all I have to stake ? 

He that with injury is griev'd, 

And goes to law to be reliev'd, 530 

Is sillier than a sottish chouse, 

Who, when a thief has robb'd his house, 

Applies himself to cunning men, 

To help him to his goods agen ; 1 

When all he can expect to gain, 535 

Is but to squander more in vain : 

And yet I have no other way, 

But is as difficult to play : 

For to reduce her by main force 

Is now in vain ; by fair means, worse ; 540 

But worst of all to give her over, 

'Till she's as desp'rate to recover: 

For bad games are thrown up too soon, 

Until they 're never to be won ; 

But since I have no other course, 545 

But is as bad t' attempt, or worse, 

He that complies against his will, 

Is of his own opinion still, 

1 In Butler's MS. under these lines are many severe strictures on law- 
yers: 

More nice and subtle than those wire-drawers 
Of equity and justice, common lawyers ; 
"Who never end, but always prune a suit 
To make it bear the greater store of fruit. 

As labouring men their hands, criers their lungs, 
Porters their backs, lawyers hire out their tongues. 
A tongue to mire and gain accustom' d long, 
Grows quite insensible to right or wrong. 

The humourist that would have had a trial, 
"With one that did but look upon his dial, 
And sued him but for telling of his clock, 
And saying, 'twas too fast, or slow it struck. 



CASTO III.] HTJDIBEAS. 415 

WTiich he may 'dhere to, yet disown, 

For reasons to himself best known ; 550 

But 'tis not to b' avoided now, 

For Sidrophel resolves to sue ; 

"Whom I must answer, or begin, 

Inevitably, first with him ; 

For I've receiv'd advertisement, 555 

By times enough, of his intent ; 

And knowing he that first complains 

Th' advantage of the bus'ness gains ; 

For courts of justice understand 

The plaintiff to be eldest hand ; 560 

Who what he pleases may aver, 

The other, nothing till he swear ; l 

Is freely admitted to all grace, 

And lawful favour, by his place ; 

And, for his bringing custom in, 565 

Has all advantages to win : 

I, who resolve to oversee 

IS T o lucky opportunity, 

"Will go to counsel, to advise 

"Which way t' encounter, or surprise, 570 

And after long consideration, 

Have found out one to fit th' occasion, 

Most apt for what I have to do, 

As counsellor, and justice too. 2 

And truly so, no doubt, he was, 575 

A lawyer fit for such a case. 
An old dull sot, who told the clock, 3 
For many years at Bridewell-dock, 
At Westminster, and Hicks's-hall, 
And hiceius doctius 4 play'd in all ; 580 

1 An answer to a bill in chancery is always upon oath ; — a petition not so. 

2 Probably the poet had his eye on some particular person here. The old 
annotator says it was Edmund Prideaux ; but the respectable and wealthy 
Attorney-General of that name cannot have been meant. The portrait 
must have been taken from some one of a much lower class. A pettifogging 
lawyer named Siderfin is said with more probability to have been intended. 

3 The puisne judge was formerly called the Tell-clock ; as supposed to 
be not much employed, but listening how the time went. 

* Cant words used by jugglers, corrupted perhaps from hie est inter 
doctos. See note on hocus pocus, at line 716. 



416 HTJDIBEAS. [PAET III. 

"Where, in all governments and times, 

He 'd been both friend and foe to crimes, 

And us'd two equal ways of gaining, 

By hind'ring justice, or maintaining, 1 

To many a whore gave privilege, 585 

And whipp'd, for want of quarterage ; 

Cart-loads of bawds to prison sent, 

For b'ing behind a fortnight's rent ; 

And many a trusty pimp and crony 

To Puddle-dock, 2 for want of money : 590 

Engag'd the constables to seize 

All those that wou'd not break the peace ; 

Nor give him back his own foul words, 

Though sometimes commoners, or lords, 

And kept 'em prisoners of course, 595 

For being sober at ill hours ; 

That in the morning he might free 

Or bind 'em over for his fee. 

Made monsters fine, and puppet-plays, 

For leave to practise in their ways ; 600 

Farm'd out all cheats, and went a share 

With th' headborough and scavenger ; 

And made the dirt i' th' streets compound, 

For taking up the public ground ; 3 

The kennel, and the king's high-way, 605 

For being unmolested, pay ; 

Let out the stocks and whipping-post, 

And cage, to those that gave him most ; 

Impos'd a tax on bakers' ears, 4 

And for false weights on chandelers ; 610 

Made victuallers and vintners fine 

For arbitrary ale and wine. 5 

1 Butler served some years as clerk to a justice. The person who em- 
ployed him was an able magistrate, and respectable character : but in that 
situation he might have had an opportunity of making himself acquainted 
with the practice of trading justices. 

2 There was a gaol at this place for petty offenders. 

3 Did not levy the penalty for a nuisance, but compounded with the of- 
fender by accepting a bribe. 

4 That is, took a bribe to save them from the pillory. Bakers were liable 
to have their ears cropped for light weights. 

5 For selling ale or wine without licence, or by less than the statutable 



CASTO III.] HUDIBBAS. 417 

But was a kind and constant friend 

To all that regularly offend : 

As residentiary bawds, 615 

And brokers that receive stol'n goods ; 

That cheat in lawful mysteries, 

And pay church-duties, and his fees ; 

But was implacable and awkward, 

To all that interlop'd and hawker'd. 1 620 

To this brave man the Knight repairs 
For counsel in his law affairs, 
And found him mounted in his pew, 
"With books and money plac'd for show, 
Like nest-eggs to make clients lay, 625 

And for his false opinion pay : 
To whom the Knight, with comely grace, 
Put off his hat to put his case ; 
"Which he as proudly entertain'd, 
As th' other courteously strain'd ; 630 

And, to assure him 'twas not that 
He look'd for, bid him put on's hat. 

Quoth he, There is one Sidrophel 
"Whom I have cudgell'd — Very well — 
And now he brags to 've beaten me — 635 

Better and better still, quoth he — 
And vows to stick me to the wall, 
"Where'er he meets me — Best of all. 
'Tis true the knave has taken 's oath 
That I robb'd him — Well done, in troth. 640 



measure, or spurious mixtures. So Butler says of his Justice, Remains, vol. 
ii. p. 191. " He does his country signal service in the judicious and mature 
legitimation of tippling-houses ; that the subject be not imposed upon with 
illegal and arbitrary ale." 

1 That is, he was very severe to hawkers and interlopers, who interfered 
with the regular trade of roguery, but favoured the offences of those who 
kept houses, took out licences, and paid rates and taxes. The passage is 
thus amplified in prose, in Butler's Character of a Justice of the Peace. 
"He uses great care and moderation in punishing those that offend regularly 
by their calling, as residentiary bawds, and incumbent pimps, that pay 
parish duties, shopkeepers that use constant false weights and measures, 
these he rather prunes, that they may grow the better, than disables ; but 
is very severe to hawkers and interlopers, that commit iniquity on the 
bye." 

2 E 



418 HTTDIBBAS. [PABT III 

"When he 'a confess'd he stole my cloak, 

And pick'd my fob, and what he took ; 

Which was the cause that made me bang him, 

And take my goods again — Marry 1 hang him. 

Now, whether I should beforehand 646 

Swear he robb'd me ? — I understand. 

Or bring my action of conversion 

And trover for my goods ? 2 — Ah, whoreson ! 

Or, if 'tis better to indite, 

And bring him to his trial ? — Bight. 65C 

Prevent what he designs to do, 

And swear for th' state against him ? 3 — True. 

Or whether he that is defendant, 

In this case, has the better end on't ; 

"Who, putting in a new cross-bill, 65; 

May traverse th' action ? — Better still. 

Then there's a lady too — Aye, marry. 

That's easily prov'd accessary ; 

A widow, who by solemn vows, 

Contracted to me for my spouse, 66< 

Combin'd with him to break her word, 

And has abetted all — Good Lord ! 

Suborn' d th' aforesaid Sidrophel 

To tamper with the dev'l of hell, 

"Who put m' into a horrid fear, 66i 

Fear of my life — Make that appear. 

Made an assault with fiends and men 

Upon my body — Good agen. 

And kept me in a deadly fright, 

And false imprisonment, all night. 67< 

Meanwhile they robb'd me, and my horse, 

And stole my saddle — "Worse and worse. 

And made me mount upon the bare ridge, 

T' avoid a wretcheder miscarriage. 



1 The second syllable must be slurred in reading. For a note on Marry- 
come-up see page 93. 

2 An action of trover is an action brought for recovery of goods wrong- 
fully detained. 

3 Swear that a crime was committed by him against the public peace, or 
peace of the state. 



CAXTO III.] HUDIBEAS. 419 

Sir, quoth the Lawyer, not to natter ye, 675 

You have as good and fair a battery l 
As heart can wish, and need not shame 
The proudest man alive to claim : 
Tor if they 've us'd you as you say, 
Marry, quoth I, God give you joy ; 680 

I wou'd it were my case, I'd give 
More than I'll say, or you'll believe : 
I wou'd so trounce her, and her purse, 
I'd make her kneel for better or worse ; 
For matrimony, and hanging here, 686 

Both go by destiny so clear, 2 
That you as sure may pick and choose, 
As cross I win, and pile you lose ; 3 
And if I durst, I wou'd advance 
As much in ready maintenance, 4 690 

As upon any case I've known; 
But we that practise dare not own : 
The law severely contrabands 
Our taking bus'ness off men's hands ; 
'Tis common barratry, 5 that bears 695 

Point-blank an action 'gainst our ears, 
And crops them till there is not leather, 
To stick a pen in left of either ; 
For which some do the summer-Bauit, 
And o'er the bar, like tumblers, vault : 6 700 

1 Meaning an action of Battery. See Measure for Measure, Act ii. sc. 1, 
and Twelfth Night, Act iv. sc. 1. 

2 This proverbial saying has already been quoted at page 166. "We will 
only add here that it is quoted by several of the old poets, as also by Shak- 
speare, Merch. of Ven. Act ii. sc. 9, and Ben Jonson, Barthol. Fair, Act iv. 
sc. 3. 

3 Meaning a mere toss up, see page 292. 

* Maintenance is the unlawful upholding of a cause or person. 

5 Barratry is the unlawful stirring up of suits or quarrels, either in court 
or elsewhere. 

6 Summer-sault (or somerset), throwing heels over head, a feat of activity 
performed by tumblers. When a lawyer has been guilty of misconduct, 
and is not allowed to practise in the courts, he is said to be thrown over the 
bar. 

2 e 2 






420 HUDIBRAS. [PAET III. 

But you may swear at any rate, 

Things not in nature, for the state ; 

For in all courts of justice here 

A witness is not said to swear, 

But make oath, that is, in plain terms, 705 

To forge whatever he affirms. 

I thank you, quoth the Knight, for that, 
Because 'tis to my purpose pat — 
For Justice, tho' she's painted blind, 
Is to the weaker side inclin'd, 710 

Like charity ; else right and wrong 
Cou'd never hold it out so long, 
And, like blind fortune, with a sleight, 
Conveys men's interest and right, 
From Stiles's pocket into Nokes's, 1 715 

As easily as hocus pocus ; 3 
Plays fast and loose, makes men obnoxious ; 
And clear again, like hiccius doctius. 
Then whether you would take her life, 
Or but recover her for your wife, 720 

Or be content with what she has, 
And let all other matters pass, 
The bus'ness to the law's alone, 3 
The proof is all it looks upon ; 

And you can want no witnesses, 725 

To swear to any thing you please, 4 
That hardly get their mere expenses 
By th' labour of their consciences, 

1 Fictitious names, sometimes used in stating cases, issuing writs, &c. 

2 In all probability a corruption of hoc est corpus, by way of ridiculous 
imitation of tbe priests of tbe Cburcb of Rome, in their trick of transubstan- 
tiation. — Tillotson. But Nares thinks that the origin of the term may 
be derived from the Italian jugglers, who called that craft Ochus Bochus, 
after a magician of that name. Hocus, to cheat, comes from this phrase ; 
and Malone suggests that the modern word hoax has the same origin. 

3 Later editions read : 

The bus'ness to the law's all one. 

4 Taylor, the Water Poet, says, " that some do make a trade of swear- 
ing ; as a fellow being once asked of what occupation he was, made answer, 
that he was a vitness, meaning one that for hire would swear in any man's 
cause, right or wrong." 



CANTO Til.] HTJDIBRAS. 421 

Or letting out to hire their ears 

To affidavit customers, 73j 

At inconsiderable values, 

To serve for jurymen or tales. 1 

Altho' retain'd in th' hardest matters 

Of trustees and administrators. 

For that, quoth he, let me alone ; 735 

We've store of such, and all our own, 
Bred up and tutor'd by our teachers, 
Th' ablest of all conscience-stretchers. 2 

That's well, quoth he, but I should guess, 
By weighing all advantages, 740 

Sour surest way is first to pitch 
On Bongey for a water-witch ; 3 
And when y' have hang'd the conjurer, 
T' have time enough to deal with her. 
In th' int'rim spare for no trepans, 745 

To draw her neck into the banns ; 
Ply her with love-letters and billets, 
And bait 'em well for quirks and quillets, 4 
With trains t' inveigle, and surprise 
Her heedless answers and replies ; 750 

And if she miss the mouse-trap lines, 
They'll serve for other by designs ; 
And make an artist understand, 
To copy out her seal or hand ; 

Or find void places in the paper, 755 

To steal in something to entrap her ; 

1 Tales, or Tales de circumstantibus, are persons of like rank and quality 
with such of the principal pannel as are challenged, but do not appear ; and 
who, happening to be in court, are taken to supply their places as jury- 
men. 

2 Downing and Stephen Marshall, who absolved from their oaths the 
prisoners released at Brentford. See note at pages 82 and 177, 178. 

3 On Sidrophel the reputed conjurer. The poet nicknames him Bongey, 
from a Franciscan friar of that name, who lived in Oxford about the end of 
the thirteenth century, and was by some classed with Roger Bacon, and 
therefore deemed a conjurer by the common people. " A water-witch " means 
probably one to be tried by the water-ordeal. 

4 Subtleties. Shakspeare frequently used the word quillet, which is pro- 
bably a contraction from quibblet. See Wright's Glossary. 



422 HUDIBEAS [PART III. 

Till, with her worldly goods and body, 

Spite of her heart she has indow'd ye : 

Eetain all sorts of witnesses, 

That ply i' th' Temple, under trees ; 760 

Or walk the round, with knights o' th' posts, 1 

About the cross-legg'd knights, their hosts ; 2 

Or wait for customers between 

The pillar-rows in Lincoln's-Inn ; 3 

Where vouchers, forgers, common-bail, 765 

And affidavit-men ne'er fail 

T' expose to sale all sorts of oaths, 

According to their ears and clothes, 4 

Their only necessary tools, 

Besides the Gospel, and their souls ; 5 770 

And when ye 're furnish'd with all purveys, 

I shall be ready at your service. 

I would not give, quoth Hudibras, 
A straw to understand a case, 

Without the admirabler skill 775 

To wiud and manage it at will ; 
To veer, and tack, and stear a cause, 
Against the weather-gage of laws ; 
And ring the changes upon cases, 
As plain as noses upon faces ; 780 

1 Witnesses who are ready to swear anything, true or false. See note at 
page 28. 

2 These witnesses frequently plied for custom about the Temple-church, 
where are several monumental effigies of knights templars, who, according to 
custom, are represented cross-legged. Their hosts means that nobody gave 
them any better entertainment than these knights, and therefore that they 
were almost starved. 

3 The crypt beneath the chapel of Lincoln's Inn, was another place 
where these knights of the post plied for custom. 

4 Lord Clarendon, in his History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. p. 355, tells us 
that an Irishman of low condition and meanly clothed, being brought as 
evidence against Lord Strafford, lieutenant of Ireland, Mr Pym gave him 
money to buy a satin suit and cloak, in which equipage he appeared at the 
trial. The like was practised in the trial of Lord Stafford for the popish 
plot. See Carte's History of the Life of James Duke of Ormonde, vol. ii. 
p. 517. 

5 "When a witness swears he holds the Gospel in his right hand, and 
kisses it : the Gospel therefore is called his tool, by which he damns his 
other tool, namely, his soul. 



m.] 



HUDIBKAS. 



423 



As you have well instructed me, 

For which you 've earn'd, here 'tis, your fee. 

I long to practise your advice, 

And try the subtle artifice ; 

To bait a letter as you bid — 

As, not long after, thus he did : 
For, having pump'd up all his wit, 
And humm'd upon it, thus he writ. 



%Jr - • iks^&K 





AN HEROICAL EPISTLE 



HUDIBRAS TO HIS LADY. 



WHO was once as great as Caesar, 
Am now reduc'd to Nebuchadnezzar ; l 
And from as fam'd a conqueror, 
As ever took degree in war, 
Or did bis exercise in battle, 

By you turn'd out to grass with cattle. 

For since I am deny'd access 

To all my earthly happiness, 

1 See Daniel, chap. iv. verses 32, 33. 



HTDTBEAS. 125 

Am fallen from the paradise 

Of your good graces, and fair eyes ; 10 

Lost to the world and you, I'm sent 

To everlasting banishment, 

"Where all the hopes I had t' have won 

Your heart, b'ing dash'd, will break my own. 

Yet if you were not so severe 15 

To pass your doom before you hear, 
You'd find, upon my just defence, 
How much you 've wrong' d my innocence. 
That once I made a vow to you, 

Which yet is unperform'd, 'tis true ; 20 

But not because it is unpaid 
Tis violated, though delay' d. 
Or if it were, it is no fault 
So heinous, as you'd have it thought ; 
To undergo the loss of ears, 26 

Like vulgar hackney perjurers ; 
For there's a difference in the case, 
Between the noble and the base ; 
Who always are observ'd to 've done 't 
Upon as diff rent an account ; 30 

The one for great and weighty cause, 
To salve in honour ugly flaws ; 
For none are like to do it sooner 
Than those who 're nicest of their honour ; 
The other, for base gain and pay, 35 

Forswear and perjure by the day, 
And make th' exposing and retailing 
Their souls, and consciences, a calling. 
It is no scandal, nor aspersion, 

Upon a great and noble person, 40 

To say, he nat'rally abhorr'd 
Th' old-fashion' d trick, to keep his word, 
Tho' 'tis perfidiousness and shame, 
In meaner men to do the same : 
For to be able to forget, 45 

Is found more useful to the great 
Than gout, or deafness, or bad eyes, 
To make 'em pass for wondrous wise. 
But tho' the law, on perjurers, 
Inflicts the forfeiture of ears, 50 



426 HUDIBKAS. [EPISTLE TO 

It is not just, that does exempt 

The guilty, and punish the innocent. 1 

To make the ears repair the wrong 

Committed by th' uugovern'd tongue ; 

And when one member is forsworn, 65 

Another to be eropp'd or torn. 

And if you shou'd, as you design, 

By course of law, recover mine, 

You're like, if you consider right, 

To gain but little honour by't. 60 

For he that for his lady's sake 

Lays down his life, or limbs, at stake, 

Does not so much deserve her favour, 

As he that pawns his soul to have her. 

This you 've acknowledg'd I have done, 65 

Altho' you now disdain to own ; 

But sentence 2 what you rather ought 

T' esteem good service than a fault. 

Besides, oaths are not bound to bear 

That literal sense the words infer, 70 

But, by the practice of the age, 

Are to be judg'd how far th' engage ; 

And where the sense by custom's checkt, 

Are found void, and of none effect, 

For no man takes or keeps a vow, 75 

But just as he sees others do ; 

Nor are th' oblig'd to be so brittle, 

As not to yield and bow a little : 

For as best temper' d blades are found, 

Before they break, to bend quite round ; 80 

So truest oaths are still most tough, 

And, tho' they bow, are breaking-proof. 

Then wherefore should they not b' allow'd 

In love a greater latitude ? 

For as the law of arms approves 85 

All ways to conquest, so shou'd love's ; 

And not be tied to true or false, 

But make that justest that prevails : 

1 This line must be read — 

" The guilty 'nd punish th' innocent.' 
1 That is, condemn or pass sentence upon. 



HIS LADY.] HT7DIBEAS. 427 

For how can that which is ahove 

All empire, high and mighty love, 90 

Submit its great prerogative, 

To any other pow'r alive ? 

Shall love, that to bo crown gives place, 

Become the subject of a case ? 

The fundamental law of nature, 95 

Be over-rul'd by those made after ? 

Commit the censure of its cause 

To any, but its own great laws ? 

Love, that's the world's preservative, 

That keeps all souls of things alive ; 100 

Controls the mighty pow'r of fate, 

And gives mankind a longer date ; 

The life of nature, that restores 

As fast as time and death devours ; 

To whose free gift the world does owe 105 

Not only earth, but heaven too : 

For love's the only trade that's driven, 

The interest of state in heaven, 1 

"Which nothing but the soul of man 

Is capable to entertain. 110 

For what can earth produce, but love, 

To represent the joys above ? 

Or who but lovers can converse, 

Like angels, by the eye-discourse ? 

Address, and compliment by vision, 115 

Make love, and court by intuition ? 

And burn in am'rous flames as fierce 

As those celestial ministers ? 

1 So "Waller : All that we know of those above, 

Is, that they live and that they love. 
But the Spanish priest Henriquez, in his singular book entitled "The busi- 
ness of the Saints in Heaven," printed at Salamanca, 1631, assumes to know 
more about them. He says that every sai?it shall have his particular house 
in heaven, and Christ a most magnificent palace ! That there shall be large 
streets, great piazzas, fountains, and gardens. That there shall be a sove- 
reign pleasure in kissing and embracing the bodies of the blest ; and pleasant 
baths, where they shall bathe themselves in each other's company ; that all 
shall sing like nightingales, and delight themselves in masquerades, feasts 
and ballads ; and that the angels shall be attired as females, and pres-jM 
themselves to the saints in full costume, with curls and locks, waistcoats and 
fardingales. 



428 HUDIBEAS. [EPISTLE TO 

Then how can anything offend, 

In order to so great an end ? 120 

Or heav'n itself a sin resent, 

That for its own supply was meant ? ' 

That merits, in a kind mistake, 

A pardon for th' offence's sake ? 

Or if it did not, but the cause 125 

"Were left to th' injury of laws, 

"What tyranny can disapprove, 

There should be equity in love ? 

For laws, that are inanimate, 

And feel no sense of love or hate, 2 130 

That have no passion of their own, 

Nor pity to be wrought upon, 

Are only proper to inflict 

Revenge on criminals as strict. 

But to have power to forgive, 135 

Is empire and prerogative ; 

And 'tis in crowns a nobler gem 

To grant a pardon than condemn. 

Then, since so few do what they ough •, 

'Tis great t' indulge a well-meant fault ; 140 

For why should he who made address, 

All humble ways, without success ; 

And met with nothing in return 

But insolence, affronts, and seorn, 

Not strive by wit to counter-mine, 145 

And bravely carry his design ? 

He who was us'd s' unlike a soldier, 

Blown up with philters of love-powder ; 

And after letting blood, and purging, 

Condemn'd to voluntary scourging ; 150 

Alarm'd with many a horrid fright, 

And claw'd by goblins in the night ; 

Insulted on, revil'd and jeer'd, 

"With rude invasion of his beard ; 

And when your sex was foully scandal' d, 155 

As foully by the rabble handled ; 

1 The Knight sophistically argues that heaven cannot resent love as a sin, 
since it is itself love, and therefore all love is heaven. 

2 Aristotle defined law to be, reason without passion ; and despotism, or 
arbitrary power, to be, passion without reason. 



HIS LADY.] HrDIBKAS. 429 

Attacked by despicable foes, 

And drubb'd with mean and vulgar blows ; 

And, after all, to be debarr'd 

So much as standing on his guard ; 160 

When horses, being spurr'd and prick' d, 

Have leave to kick for being kick'd ? 

Or why should you, whose mother-wits ' 
Are furnish'd with all perquisites ; 
That with your breeding teeth begin, 166 

And nursing babies that lie in ; 
B' allow' d to put all tricks upon 
Our cully 2 sex, and we use none ? 
We, who have nothing but frail vows 
Against your stratagems t' oppose ; 170 

Or oaths, more feeble than your own, 
By which we are no less put down ? 3 
Tou wound, like Parthians, while you fly, 
And kill with a retreating eye ; 4 

Betire the more, the more we press, 175 

To draw us into ambushes : 
As pirates all false colours wear, 
T' intrap th' unwary mariner ; 
So women, to surprise us, spread 
The borrow'd flags of white and red ; 180 

Display 'em thicker on their cheeks, 
Than their old grandmothers, the Picts ; 
And raise more devils with their looks, 
Than conjurers' less subtle books : 
Lay trains of amorous intrigues, 1 85 

In tow'rs, and curls, and periwigs, 
With greater art and cunning rear'd, 
Than Philip Nye's Thanksgiving-beard ; 5 

5 Why should you, who were sharp and witty from your infancy, who 
bred wit with your teeth, &c. 

2 Foolish, or easily gulled. 

3 That is, we are no less subdued by your oaths than by your stratagems. 

4 The Parthians were excellent horsemen and very dexterous in shooting 
their arrows behind them, by which means their flight was often as de- 
structive to the enemy as their attack. 

5 Nye was a member of the Assembly of Divines, and as remarkable for his 
beard as for his fanaticism. He first entered at Brazen-nose college, Oxford, 
and afterwards removed to Magdalen-hall, where he took his degrees, and 
then went to Holland. In 1640 he returned home a furious Presbyterian ; 



430 HTJDIBEAS. [EPISTLE TC 

Preposterously t' entice and gain 

Those to adore 'em they disdain ; 190 

And only draw 'em in to clog, 

"With idle names, a catalogue. 1 

A lover is, the more he's brave, 

T' his mistress but the more a slave ; 2 

And whatsoever she commands, 195 

Becomes a favour from her hands, 

"Which he's oblig'd t' obey, and must, 

"Whether it be unjust or just. 

Then when he is compell'd by her 

T' adventures he would else forbear, 200 

"Who, with his honour, can withstand, 

Since force is greater than command ? 

And when necessity's obey'd, 

Nothing can be unjust or bad : 

And therefore, when the mighty pow'rs 205 

Of love, our great ally, and yours, 

Join'd forces not to be withstood 

By frail enamour' d flesh and blood, 

and was sent to Scotland to forward the Covenant. He then became a 
strenuous preacher on the side of the Independents: "was put into Dr 
Featly's living at Acton, and rode there every Lord's day in triumph in a 
coach drawn by four horses." He attacked Lilly the astrologer from the 
pulpit with considerable virulence, and for this service was rewarded with 
the office of holding forth upon thanksgiving days. Wherefore 

He thought upon it, and resolv'd to put 

His beard into as wonderful a cut. 

Butler's MS. 
This preacher's beard is honoured with an entire poem in Butler's Genuine 
Remains, vol. i. p. 177. Indeed beards at that period were the prominent 
part of fashionable costume : when the head of a celebrated court chaplain 
and preacher had been dressed in a superior style, the friseur exclaimed, with 
a mixture of admiration and self-applause, "I'll be hang'd if any person 
of taste can attend to one word of the sermon to-day." 

1 To increase the catalogue of their discarded suitors. 

2 The poet may here possibly allude to some well-known characters of 
his time. Bishop Burnet says : " The Lady Dysart came to have so much 
power over Lord Lauderdale, that it lessened him very much in the es- 
teem of all the world ; for he delivered himself up to all her humours and 
passions." And we know that Anne Clarges, at first the mistress, and 
afterward the wife of General Monk, duke of Albemarle, gained the most 
undue influence over that intrepid commander, who, though never afraid 
of bullets, was often terrified by the fury of his wife. 



HIS LADY.] HTJDIBRAS. 431 

All I have done, unjust or ill, 

Was in obedience to your will, iiu 

x\nd all the blame that can be due 

Falls to your cruelty, and you. 

Nor are those scandals I confest, 

Against my will and interest, 

More than is daily done, of course, 215 

By all men, when they're under force 

Whence some, upon the rack, confess 

What th' hangman and their prompters please ; 

But are no sooner out of pain, 

Than they deny it all again. 220 

But when the devil turns confessor, 

Truth is a crime he takes no pleasure 

To hear or pardon, like the founder 

Of liars, whom they all claim under : * 

And therefore when I told him none, 225 

I think it was the wiser done. 

Nor am I without precedent, 

The first that on th' adventure went ; 

All mankind ever did of course, 

And daily does 2 the same, or worse. 230 

For what romance can show a lover, 

That had a lady to recover, 

And did not steer a nearer course, 

To fall aboard in his amours ? 

And what at first was held a crime, 235 

Has turn'd to hon'rable in time. 

To what a height did infant Home, 
By ravishing of women, come ? 3 

1 See St John viii. 44. Butler, in his MS. Common-place Book, says . 

As lyars, with long use of telling lyes, 

Forget at length if they are true or false, 

So those that plod on anything too long, 

Know nothing whether th' are in the right or wrong; 

For what are all your demonstrations else, 

But to the higher powers of sense appeals ; 

Senses that th' undervalue and contemn 

As if it lay below their wits and them. 

2 Var. daily do, in all editions to 1716 inclusive. 

3 This refers to the well-known story of the Rape of the Sabines. 



1,32 HTTDIBBAS. [EPISTLE TO 

When men upon their spouses seiz'd, 

And freely marry' d where they pleas'd : 210 

They ne'er forswore themselves, nor lied, 

Nor, in the mind they were in, died ; 

Nor took the pains t' address and sue, 

Nor play'd the masquerade to woo : 

Disdain' d to stay for friends' consents, 245 

Nor juggled about settlements : 

Did need no licence, nor no priest, 

Nor friends, nor kindred, to assist ; 

Nor lawyers, to join land and money 

In the holy state of matrimony, 250 

Before they settled hands and hearts, 

Till alimony or death departs ; * 

Nor would endure to stay, until 

They 'd got the very bride's good-will, 

But took a wise and shorter course 255 

To win the ladies — downright force ; 

And justly made 'em prisoners then, 

As they have, often since, us men, 

With acting plays, and dancing jigs, 2 

The luckiest of all love's intrigues ; 260 

And when they had them at their pleasure, 

They talk'd of love and flames at leisure ; 

For after matrimony's over, 

He that holds out but half a lover, 

Deserves, for ev'ry minute, more 265 

Than half a year of love before ; 

For which the dames, in contemplation 

Of that best way of application, 

Prov'd nobler wives than e'er were known, 

By suit, or treaty, to be won ; 3 270 

1 Thus printed in some editions of the Prayer Book ; afterwards altered, 
" till death us do part," as mentioned in a former note. In some editions 
of Hudibras this line reads, " Till alimony or death them parts." 

3 The whole of this stanza refers to the rape of the Sabines. The Ro- 
mans, under Romulus, pretending to exhibit some fine shows and diversions, 
drew together a concourse of young women, and seized them for their wives. 

3 When the Sabines came with a large army to demand their daughters, 
and the two nations were preparing to decide the matter by fight, the 
women who had been carried away ran between the armies with strong ma- 
nifestations of grief, and thus effected a reconciliation. 



niS LADT.] HTJDIBEAS. 433 

And such as all posterity 

Cou'd never equal, nor come nigh. 

For women first were made for men, 
JSot men for them. — It follows, then, 
That men have right to every one, 275 

And they no freedom of their own ; 
And therefore men have pow'r to chuse 
But they no charter to refuse. 
Hence 'tis apparent that what course 
Soe'er we take to your amours, 280 

Though by the indirectest way, 
'Tis not injustice nor foul play ; 
And that you ought to take that course 
As we take you, for better or worse, 
And gratefully submit to those 285 

"Who you, before another, chose. 
.For why shou'd ev'ry savage beast 
Exceed his great lord's interest ? l 
Have freer pow'r than he, in grace, 
And nature, o'er the creature has ? 290 

Because the laws he since has made 
Have cut off all the pow'r he had; 
Betrench'd the absolute dominion 
That nature gave him over women ; 
"When all his pow'r will not extend 295 

One law of nature to suspend ; 
And but to offer to repeal 
The smallest clause, is to rebel. 
This, if men rightly understood 

Their privilege, they would make good, 300 

And not, like sots, permit their wives 
T' encroach on their prerogatives ; 
For which sin they deserve to be 
Kept, as they are, in slavery : 

And this some precious gifted teachers, 305 

TJnrev'rently reputed lechers,' 2 

1 That is, man sometimes called lord of the world : 

Man of all creatures the most fierce and -wild 

That ever God made or the devil spoil' d : 

The most courageous of men, by want, 

As well as honour, are made valiant. Butler's MS. 

2 Mr Case, as some have supposed, but, according to others, Dr Burgess, 

2 F 



434 HTJDIBBAS. [EPISTLE TO 

And disobey' d in making love, 
Have vow'd to all the world to prove, 
And make ye suffer as you ought, 
For that uncharitable fault : 310 

But I forget myself, and rove 
Beyond th' instructions of my love. 
Eorgive me, Pair, and only blame 
Th' extravagancy of my flame, 

Since 'tis too much at once to show 315 

Excess of love and temper too. 
All I have said that's bad, and true, 
Was never meant to aim at you, 
"Who have so sov'reign a control 
O'er that poor slave of yours, my soul, 320 

That, rather than to forfeit you, 
Has ventur'd loss of heaven too ; 
Both with an equal pow'r possest, 
To render all that serve you blest ; 
But none like him, who's destin'd either 325 

To have or lose you both together ; 
And if you'll but this fault release, 
For so it must be, since you please, 
I'll pay down all that vow, and more, 
Which you commanded, and I swore, 330 

And expiate, upon my skin, 
Th' arrears in full of all my sin : 
For 'tis but just that I should pay 
Th' accruing penance for delay, 

Which shall be done, until it move 335 

Your equal pity and your love. 

The Knight, perusing this Epistle, 
Believ'd he 'ad brought her to his whistle ; 
And read it, like a jocund lover, 
With great applause, t' himself, twice over : 340 

or Hugh Peters. Most probably the latter, as in several volumes and tracts 
of the time Peters is distinctly accused of gross lechery ; and in Thurloe's 
State Papers (vol. iv. p. 784) it is stated that he was found with a whore 
a-bed, and grew mad, and said nothing but " blood, blood, that troubles 
me." 

1 See Butler's "Character of a Wooer." 



HIS LADY.] 



435 



Subscrib'd his name, but at a fit 

And bumble distance to his wit ; 

And dated it with wondrous art, 

' Giv'n from the bottom of his heart ; ' 

Then seal'd it with his coat of love, 

A smoking faggot, — and above 

Upon a scroll — I burn, and weep ; 

And near it — For her ladyship, 

Of all her sex most excellent, 

These to her gentle hands present. 1 

Then gave it to his faithless Squire, 

"With lessons how t' observe and eye her. 2 

She first consider'd which was better, 
To send it back, or burn tbe letter : 
But guessing that it might import, 
Tho' nothing else, at least her sport, 
She open'd it, and read it out, 
"With many a smile and leering flout : 
Eesolv'd to answer it in kind, 
And thus perform'd what she design'd. 360 

1 The Knight's prolix superscription to his love-letter is in the fashionable 
style of the time. Common forms were — To my much honoured friend — 
To the most excellent lady — To my loving cousin — these present with care 
and speed, &c. 

2 Don Quixote, when he sent his squire Sancho Panza to his mistress 
Dulcinea del Toboso, gives him similar directions. 






350 



355 




2 p 2 




iliiy mmui 




THE LADY'S ANSWEK 



THE KNIGHT. 




(HAT you 're a beast and turn'd to grass 
Is no strange news, nor ever was ; 
At least to me, who once, you know, 
Did from the pound replevin you, 1 
"When b oth your sword and spurs were won 5 
In combat by an Amazon : 

That sword that did, like fate, determine 

Th' inevitable death of vermin, 

And never dealt its furious blows, 

But cut the threads of pigs and cows, 10 

By Trulla was, in single fight, 

Disarm'd and wrested from its Knight, 



1 A replevin is a re-deliverance of the thing distrained, to remain with 
the first possessor on surety to answer the distrainer's suit. 



HTTDIBEAS. 437 

Tour heels degraded of your spurs, 1 

And in the stocks close prisoners : 

"Where still they 'd lain, in hase restraint, 15 

If I, in pity 'f your complaint, 

Had not, on hon'rahle conditions, 

Releast 'em from the worst of prisons ; 

And what return that favour met, 

You cannot, tho' you wou'd forget; 20 

When heing free you strove t' evade 

The oaths you had in prison made ; 

Forswore yourself, and first denied it, 

But after OAvn'd, and justified it ; 

And when you 'd falsely broke one vow, 35 

Absolv'd yourself, by breaking two. 

For while you sneakingly submit, 

And beg for pardon at our feet ; 2 

Discourag'd by your guilty fears, 

To hope for quarter, for your ears ; 30 

And doubting 'twas in vain to sue, 

Tou claim us boldly as your due, 

Declare that treachery and force, 

To deal with us, is th' only course ; 

"We have no title nor pretence 35 

To body, soul, or conscience, 

But ought to fall to that man's share 

That claims us for his proper ware : 

These are the motives which, t' induce, 

Or fright us into love, you use ; 40 

A pretty new way of gallanting, 

Between soliciting and ranting ; 

Like sturdy beggars, that intreat 

For charity at once, and threat. 

But since you undertake to prove 45 

Tour own propriety in love, 

As if we were but lawful prize 

In war, between two enemies, 

1 In England, when a knight was degraded, his gilt spurs were beaten 
from his heels, and his sword taken from him and broken. See a previous 
note. 

2 The widow, to keep up her dignity and importance, speaks of herself in 
the plural number. 



438 H.UDIBBAS. [THE LADV's 

Or forfeitures which ev'ry lover, 

That would but sue for, might recover, 50 

It is not hard to understand 

The myst'ry of this bold demand, 

That cannot at our persons aim, 

But something capable of claim. 1 

'Tis not those paltry counterfeit 65 

French stones, which in our eyes you set, 
But our right diamonds, that inspire 
And set your am'rous hearts on fire ; 
JN"or can those false St Martin's beads 2 
Which on our lips you lay for reds, 60 

And make us wear like Indian dames, 3 
Add fuel to your scorching flames, 
But those two rubies of the rock, 
"Which in our cabinets we lock. 
'Tis not those orient pearls, our teeth, 4 65 

That you are so transported with, 

1 Their property. 

2 That is, counterfeit rubies. The manufacturers and venders of glass 
beads, and other counterfeit jewels, established themselves on the site of the 
old collegiate church of St Martin' s-le- Grand (demolished upon the dissolu- 
tion of the monasteries), where they carried on a considerable trade. The 
articles fabricated at this place were called by its name, as we now say, 
" Brommagem ware." 

3 Female savages in many parts of the globe wear ornaments of fish-bone, 
stones, or coloured glass when they can get it, on their lips and noses. 

4 In the History of Don Fenise, a romance translated from the Spanish 
of Francisco de la's Coveras, and printed 1656, p. 269, is the following pas- 
sage : " My covetousness exceeding my love, counselled me that it was better 
to have gold in money than in threads of hair ; and to possess pearls that 
resemble teeth, than teeth that were like pearls." 

In praising Chloris, moons, and stars, and skies, 

Are quickly made to match her face and eyes ; 

And gold and rubies, with as little care, 

To fit the colour of her lips and hair : 

And mixing suns, and fiow'rs, and pearl, and stones, 

Make them serve all complexions at once : 

With these fine fancies at hap-hazard writ, 

I could make verses without art or wit, 

And shifting fifty times the verb and noun, 

"With stol'n impertinence patch up my own. 

Butler's Remains, v. i. p. 88. 



AVSWEK.] 



But those we wear about our necks, 

Produce those amorous effects. 

Xor is 't those threads of gold, our hair, 

The periwigs you make vis wear ; 70 

But those bright guineas in our chests, 

That light the wildfire in your breasts. 

These love-tricks I've been vers'd in so, 

That all their sly intrigues I know, 

And can unriddle, by their tones, 75 

Their mystic cabals, and jargones ; 

Can tell what passions, by their sounds, 

Pine for the beauties of my grounds ; 

What raptures fond and amorous, 

O' th' charms and graces of my house ; 80 

"What ecstasy and scorching flame, 

Burns for my money in my name ; 

What from th' unnatural desire, 

To beasts and cattle, takes its fire ; 

What tender sigh, and trickling tear, 85 

Longs for a thousand pounds a year ; 

And languishing transports are fond 

Of statute, mortgage, bill, and bond. 1 

These are th' attracts which most men fall 
Enamour'd, at first sight, withal ; 90 

To these th' address with serenades, 
And court with balls and masquerades ; 
And yet, for all the yearning pain 
Ye 've suffer' d for their loves in vain, 
I fear they'll prove so nice and coy, 95 

To have, and t' hold, and to enjoy ; 
That all your oaths and labour lost, 
They'll ne'er turn ladies of the post. 2 
This is not meant to disapprove 

Tour judgment, in your choice of love, 100 

Which is so wise, the greatest part 
Of mankind study 't as an art ; 



1 Statute is a short writing called Statute Marchant, or Statute Staple, 
in the nature of a bond, &c., made according to the form expressly provided 
in certain statutes, 5th Hen. IV. c. 12, and others. 

2 That is, -will never swear for you, or vow to take you for a husband. 



440 HUDIBRAS. [THE LADv's 

For love shou'd, like a deodand, 

Still fall to th' owner of the land ; ' 

And where there 's substance for its ground, 105 

Cannot but be more firm and sound, 

Than that which has the slighter basis 

Of airy virtue, wit, and graces ; 

Which is of such thin subtlety, 

It steals and creeps in at the eye, no 

And, as it can't endure to stay, 

Steals out again, as nice a way. 2 

But love that its extraction owns 

Prom solid gold and precious stones, 

Must, like its shining parents, prove 115 

As solid and as glorious love. 

Hence 'tis you have no way t' express 

Our charms and graces but by these ; 

For what are lips, and eyes, and teeth, 

Which beauty invades and conquers with, 120 

But rubies, pearls, and diamonds, 

With which a philter love commands ? 3 

This is the way all parents prove, 
In managing their children's love ; 
That force 'em t' intermarry and wed, 125 

As if th' were bury'ng of the dead ; 
Cast earth to earth, as in the grave, 4 
To join in wedlock all they have, 

1 Any moving thing which occasions the death of a man is forfeited to 
the lord of the manor. It was originally intended that he should dispose 
of it in acts of charity : hence the name deodand, meaning a thing given, 
or rather forfeited, to God, for the pacification of his wrath, in case of mis- 
adventure, whereby a Christian man cometh to a violent end, without the 
fault of any reasonable creature. The crown frequently granted this right 
to individuals, within certain limits, or annexed it to lands, by which it be- 
came vested in the lord of the manor. 

2 Farquhar has this thought in his dialogue between Archer and Cherry. 
See the Beaux Stratagem. 

3 Out of which love makes a philter. 

4 The Burial Office, observes Dr Grey, was scandalously ridiculed. One 
Brooke, a London lecturer, at the burial of Mr John Gough, used the follow- 
ing profanity : — 

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, 
Here 's the pit, and in thou must. 

Mercurius Rusticus, No. 9. 



AJETSWEB.] HTJDIBKAS. 441 

And, when the settlement's in force, 

Take all the rest for hetter or worse ; 130 

For money has a pow'r ahove 

The stars, and fate, to manage love, 

Whose arrows, learned poets hold, 

That never miss, are tipp'd with gold. 1 

And tho' some say, the parents' claims 135 

To make love in their children's names, 2 

Who, many times, at once provide 

The nurse, the husband, and the bride 

Feel darts and charms, attracts and flames, 

And woo, and contract, in their names, 140 

And as they christen, use to marry 'em, 

And, like their gossips, answer for 'em ; 

Is not to give in matrimony, 

But sell and prostitute for money. 

"lis better than their own betrothing, 145 

Who often do 't for worse than nothing ; 

And when they're at their own dispose, 

AVith greater disadvantage choose. 

All this is right ; but, for the course 

Tou take to do 't, by fraud or force, 150 

'Tis so ridiculous, as soon 

As told, 'tis never to be done, 

No more than setters can betray, 3 

That tell what tricks they are to play. 

But Mr Cheynell (the Nonconformist) behaved still more irreverently at 
the funeral of that eminent divine Chillingicorth. After a reflecting speech 
on the deceased, in •which he declaimed against the use of reason in religious 
matters, he threw his book, ' The Religion of Protestants, or a safe way to 
Salvation,' into the grave, saying, " Get thee gone, thou cursed book, -which 
has seduced so many precious souls ; get thee gone, thou corrupt, rotten 
book, earth to earth, dust to dust : get thee into the place of rottenness, that 
thou mayst rot -with thy author, and «ee corruption." See Neal's Puri- 
tans, vol. iii. p. 102. 

1 In Ovid Cupid employs two arrows, one of gold, and the other of lead : 
the former causing love, the latter aversion. 

2 Though thus in all editions, claim and name would be better readings : 
for claim is the nominative case to is in verse 143. 

3 Setter, a term frequent in the comedies of the last century : sometimes 
it seems to be a pimp, sometimes a spy, but most usually an attendant on a 
cheating gamester, who introduces unpractised youths to be pillaged, by 



442 HUDIBEAS. [THE LADT's 

Marriage, at best, is but a vow, 155 

Which, all men either break or bow ; 
Then what will those forbear to do, 
Who perjure when they do but woo ? 
Such as beforehand swear and He, 
For earnest to their treachery, 160 

And, rather than a crime confess, 
With greater strive to make it less : 
Like thieves, who, after sentence past, 
Maintain their inn'cence to the last ; 
And when their crimes were made appear 165 

As plain as witnesses can swear, 
Yet when the wretches come to die, 
Will take upon their death a lie. 
Nor are the virtues you confess' d 
T' your ghostly father, as you guess'd, 170 

So slight as to be justified, 
By be'ng as shamefully denied ; 
As if you thought your word would pass, 
Point-blank, on both sides of a case ; 
Or credit were not to be lost 175 

B' a brave knight-errant of the post, 
That eats perfidiously his word, 
And swears his ears through a two-inch board ; ' 
Can own the same thing, and disown, 
And perjure booty pro and con; 180 

Can make the Grospel serve his turn, 
And help him out to be forsworn ; 
When 'tis laid hands upon, and kist, 
To be betray'd and sold, like Christ. 
, These are the virtues in whose name 185 

A right to all the world you claim, 
And boldly challenge a dominion, 
In grace and nature, o'er all women ; 

him ; what a setting dog is to a sportsman. Butler here seems to say that 
those who tell the cards in another's hand, cannot always tell how they will 
be played. 

1 That is, endeavours to shield himself from the punishment due to per- 
jury, the loss of his ears, by a desperate perseverance in false swearing. A 
person is said to swear through a two-inch board, when he makes oath of 
anything which was concealed from him by a thick door or partition. 



I 

ANSWEE.] HTJDIBBAS. ^443 

Of whom no less will satisfy, 

Than all the sex, your tyranny : 190 

Altho' you'll find it a hard province, 

With all your crafty frauds and covins, 1 

To govern such a nuru'rous crew, 

"Who, one by one, now govern you ; 

For if you all were Solomons, 195 

And wise and great as he was once, 

You'll find they're able to subdue, 

As they did him, and baffle you. 

And if you are impos'd upon, 

'Tis by your own temptation done : 200 

That with your ignorance invite, 

And teach us how to use the slight. 

For when we find ye're still more taken 

"With false attracts of our own making, 

Swear that's a rose, and that's a stone, 206 

Like sots, to us that laid it on, 

And what we did but slightly prime, 

Most ignorantly daub in rhyme ; 

Tou force us, in our own defences, 

To copy beams and influences ; 210 

To lay perfections on the graces, 

And draw attracts upon our faces ; 

And, in compliance to your wit, 

Tour own false jewels counterfeit : 

Tor, by the practice of those arts, 215 

We gain a greater share of hearts ; 

And those deserve in reason most, 

That greatest paius and study cost ; 

Tor great perfections are, like heav'n, 

Too rich a present to be giv'n : 220 

Nor are those master-strokes of beauty 

To be perform'd without hard duty, 

Which, when they're nobly done, and well, 

The simple natural excel. 

How fair and sweet the planted rose, 2 225 

Beyond the wild in hedges, grows ! 

1 Covin is a term of law, signifying a deceitful compact between two or 
more, to deceive or prejudice others. 

2 This and the following lines are full of poetry. Mr Nash supposes 



M4 HUDIBRAS. [THE LADY'S 



For, without art, the noblest 

Of flowers degenerate into weeds : 

How dull and rugged, ere 'tis ground 

And polish' d, looks a diamond! 23C 

Though paradise were e'er so fair, 

It was not kept so without care. - 

The whole world, without art and dress, 

"Would be but one great wilderness ; 

And mankind but a savage herd, 235 

For all that nature has conferr'd : 

This does but rough-hew and design, 

Leaves art to polish and refine. 

Though women first were made for men, 

Yet men were made for them agen : 240 

For when, out-witted by his wife, 

Man first turn'd tenant but for life, 1 

If woman had not interven'd, 

How soon had mankind had an end ! 

And that it is in being yet, 245 

To us alone you are in debt. 

Then where's your liberty of choice, 

And our unnatural no-voice ? 

Since all the privilege you boast, 

And falsel' usurp'd, or vainly lost, 250 

Is now our right, to whose creation 

You owe your happy restoration. 

And if we had not weighty cause 

To not appear in making laws, 

"We could, in spite of all your tricks 255 

And shallow formal politics, 

Force you our managements t' obey, 

As we to yours, in show, give way. 

Hence 'tis, that while you vainly strive 

T' advance your high prerogative, 263 

You basely, after all your braves, 

Submit and own yourselves our slaves ; 

that Butler alludes to Milton, when he says, 

Though paradise were e'er so fair, 

It was not kept so without care. 
1 "When man hecame subject to death by eating the forbidden fruit at the 
persuasion of woman. 



ANSWER.] 



445 



And 'cause we do not make it known, 
Nor publicly our int'rests own, 
Like sots, suppose we have no shares 
In or d' ring you, and your affairs, 
When all your empire and command, 
You have from us, at second-hand : 
As if a pilot, that appears 
To sit still only, while he steers, 
And does not make a noise and stir, 
Like ev'ry common mariner, 
Knew nothing of the card, nor star, 
And did not guide the man of war : 
JSTor we, because we don't appear 
In councils, do not govern there : 
While, like the mighty Prester John, 
Whose person none dares look upon, 1 
But is preserv'd in close disguise, 
From b'ing made cheap to vulgar eyes, 
W enjoy as large a pow'r unseen, 
To govern him, as he does men : 
And, in the right of our Pope Joan, 
Make emp'rors at our feet fall down ; 
Or Joan de Pucelle's braver name, 2 
Our right to arms and conduct claim ; 



275 



280 



1 The name or title of Prester John has heen given by travellers to the 
king of Tenduc in Asia, who, like the Abyssinian emperors, preserved great 
state, and did not condescend to be seen by his subjects more than three 
times a year, namely, Christmas day, Easter day, and Holyrood day in 
September. (See Purchas's Pilgrimes, vol. ii. p. 1082.) He is said to have 
had seventy kings for his vassals. Mandeville makes Prester John sovereign 
of an archipelago of isles in India beyond Bactria, and says that " a former . 
emperor travelled into Egypt, where being present at divine service, he asked 
who those persons were that stood before the bishop ? And being told they 
were prestres, or priests, he said he would no more be called king or em- 
peror, but priest ; and would take the name of him that came first out of the 
priests, and was called John ; since which time all the emperors have been 
called Prester John." — Cap. 99. 

2 Joan of Arc, called also the Pucelle, or Maid of Orleans. She was born 
at the town of Domremi, on the Meuse, daughter of James de Arc and 
Isabelle Romee, and was bred up a shepherdess in the country. At the 
age of eighteen or twenty she asserted that she had received an express com- 
mission from God to go to the relief of Orleans, then besieged by the Eng- 
lish, and defended by John. Compte de Dennis, and almost reduced to the 



446 HTJDIBEAS. [THE LABT'S 

"Who, tho' a spinster, yet was able 
To serve Prance for a grand constable. 
"We make and execute all laws, 

Can judge the judges, and the Cause ; 290 

Prescribe all rules of right or wrong, 
- To th' long robe, and the longer tongue, 
'Gainst which the world has no defence, 
But our more pow'rful eloquence. 
"We manage things of greatest weight 295 

In all the world's affairs of state ; 
Are ministers of war and peace, 
That sway all nations how we please. 
"We rule all churches and their flocks, 
Heretical and orthodox, 300 

And are the heav'nly vehicles 
O' th' spirits in all conventicles : J 
By us is all commerce and trade 
Improv'd, and manag'd, and decay' d : 
For nothing can go off so well, 305 

Nor bears that price, as what we sell. 
"We rule in ev'ry public meeting, 
And make men do what we judge fitting ; 2 

last extremity. She went to the coronation of Charles the Seventh, when 
he was almost ruined, and recognised that prince in the midst of his nobles, 
though meanly habited. The doctors of divinity and members of Parliament 
openly declared that there was something supernatural in her conduct. She 
sent for a sword, which lay in the tomb of a knight, behind the great 
altar of the church of St Katharine de Forbois, upon the blade of which 
the cross and fleur-de-lis' s were engraven, which put the king in a very 
great surprise, as none beside himself was supposed to know of it. Upon this 
he sent her with the command of some troops, with which she relieved Or- 
• leans, and drove the English from it, defeated Talbot at the battle of Pattai, 
and recovered Champagne. At last she was unfortunately taken prisoner 
in a sally at Champagne in 1430, and tried for a witch or sorceress, con- 
demned, and burnt in Eouen market-place in May, 1430. But her story is 
differ eutly told by different historians ; some denying the truth of the greater 
part of it, and some even of her existence. Anstis, in his Eegister of the Order 
of the Garter, says that for her valiant actions she was ennobled and had a 
grant of arms, dated January 16th, 1429. Her story is beautifully drama- 
tised by Schiller in his " Maid of Orleans." 

1 As good vehicles at least as the cloak-bag, which was said to have con- 
veyed the same from Eome to the Council of Trent. 

2 Much of what is here said on the political influence of women, 
was aimed at the court of Charles II., who was greatly governed by his 



ANSWER.] HUDIBBAS. 447 

Axe magistrates in all great towns, 

"Where men do nothing but wear gowns. 310 

We make the man of war strike sail, 1 

And to our braver conduct veil, 

And, when he 's chas'd his enemies, 

Submit to us upon his knees. 

Is there an officer of state, 315 

Untimely rais'd, or magistrate, 

That's haughty and imperious ? 

He's but a journeyman to us, 

That, as he gives us cause to do't, 

Can keep him in, or turn him out. 320 

We are your guardians, that increase 

Or waste your fortunes how we please ; 

And, as you humour us, can deal 

In all your matters, ill or well. 

'Tis we that can dispose alone, 32f. 

Whether your heirs shall be your own ; 

To whose integrity you must, 

In spite of all your caution, trust ; 

And 'less you fly beyond the seas, 

Can fit you with what heirs we please ; 2 330 

And force you t' own them, tho' begotten 

By French valets, or Irish footmen. 

Nor can the rigorousest course 

Prevail, unless to make ns worse ; 

AVho still, the harsher we are us'd, 335 

Are further off from b'ing reduc'd ; 

And scorn t' abate, for any ills, 

The least punctilio of our wills. 

Force does but whet our wits t' apply 

Arts, born with us, for remedy, 340 

Which all your politics, as yet, 

Have ne'er been able to defeat : 

For, when ye 've try'd all sorts of ways, 

What fools d' we make of you in plays ? 

mistresses, especially the Duchess of Portsmouth, who was in the interest of 
France. Some suppose that the wife of General Monk may be intended. 

1 Alluding probably to Sir "William Waller. 

2 See note on line 598 at page 289. 



448 HTTDIBEAS. [THE LADY'S 

"While all the favours we afford 34,5 

Are but to girt you with the sword, 

To fight our battles iu our steads, 

And have your brains beat out o' your heads ; 

Encounter, in despite of nature, 

And fight, at once, with fire and water, 350 

"With pirates, rocks, and storms, and seas, 

Our pride and vanity t' appease ; 

Kill one another, and cut throats, 

For our good graces, and best thoughts ; 

To do your exercise for honour, 355 

And have your brains beat out the sooner ; 

Or crack'd, as learnedly, upon 

Things that are never to be known : 

And still appear the more industrious, 

The more your projects are prepost'rous ; 360 

To square the circle of the arts, 

And run stark mad to show your parts ; 

Expound the oracle of laws, 

And turn them which way we see cause ; 

Be our solicitors and agents, 365 

And stand for us in all engagements. 

And these are all the mighty pow'rs 
You vainly boast to cry down ours ; 
And what in real value's wanting, 
Supply with vapouring and ranting : 370 

Because yourselves are terrified, 
And stoop to one another's pride : 
Believe we have as little wit 
To be out-hector' d, and submit : 
By your example, lose that right 375 

In treaties, which we gain'd in fight : ' 
And terrified into an awe, 
Pass on ourselves a Salique law ; 2 

1 England, in every period of her history, has been thought more success- 
ful in war than in negotiation. Congreve, reflecting upon Queen Anne's 
last ministry, in his epistle to Lord Cobhani, says : 

Ee far that guilt, be never known that shame, 
That Britain should retract her rightful claim, 
Or stain with pen the triumphs of her sword ! 

2 The Salique law bars the succession of females to some inheritances. 



A^SWEB.] 



419 



Or, as some nations use, give place, 

And truckle to your mighty race, 1 380 

Let men usurp th' unjust dominion, 

As if they were the better women. 

Thus knights' fees -were in some parts terra salicts : males only being allowed 
to inherit such lands, because females could not perform the services for 
which they were granted. In France this law regulates the inheritance of 
the crown itself. See Shakspeare, Henry V., Act i. sc. 2. 

1 Grey thinks this may be an allusion to the obsequiousness of the Mus- 
covite women, recorded in Purchas's Pilgrimes (vol. ii. p. 230), a book with 
which our poet seems to have been very familiar. It is there said, ' ' That 
if in Muscovy the woman is not beaten once a week she will not be good ; 
and therefore they look for it weekly : and the women say, if their husbands 
did not beat them, they should not love them." 




2 a 




INDEX. 

[1&? n. refers to the number of the notes at the foot of the page.'] 



Abracadabra, a charm, 223, n. 2. 

Aches, 192, n. 3 ; 293 and n. 1 ; 344. 

Achievements, military, 55, n. 1. 

Achitophel, 345 and n. 2. 

Action on the case, 131 and n. 2. 

Adam, picture of, 11, n. 3; his first 
green breeches, 25 and n. 2; Eve 
carved from his side, 296 and n. 1. 

Addison, his censure of Butler, pre- 
face, 23. 

Administerings, 312 and n. 5. 

iEneas, his descent into hell, 23, 
n. 1. 

iEolus, an attendant on fame, 138, 
n. 5. 

Affidavit-hand, 285 and n. 2. 

Affidavit-makers, 337 and n. 4. 

Agamemnon, dagger of, 19, n. 3. 

Aganda, story of, 53, n. 2. 

Agrippa, Henry Cornelius, renowned 
for solid lying, 25 ; particulars 
respecting, 25 and n. 5 ; his dog 
suspected to be a spirit, 238 and 
n. 1, 2. 

Ajax, slays a flock of sheep, 54, n. 
2 ; the shield of, 59, n. 2. 

Albert, archduke of Austria, 91, n. 1. 

Albertus Magnus, Bishop of Ratis- 
bon, 152 and n. 3. 

Alborach, the ass of Mahomet, 14, 
n. 1. 

Alchymists, or hermetic philoso- 
phers, 280, n. 1, 3. 

Alcoran, 371 andn. 2. 

Alimony, 309 and n. 5 ; or death, 
432 andn. 1. 



Allay and Alloy, 346 and n. 7. 

Alligators, hung up, 370 and n. 3. 

Almanacks, licenser of, 218, n. 5. 

Amazons, the, 298 and n. 1. 

America, supposed to have been dis- 
covered by the Britons, 44, n. 2. 

Ammianus Marcellinus, fact re- 
lated by, 53, n. 1. 

Anabaptists, or Dippers, 24, n. 2 ; 
insist on immersion in baptism, 
90, n. 3 ; 103 and n. 2 ; enemies 
to learning, 131, n. 2. 

Anagram, 296 and n. 2. 

Anaxagoras, the Ionic philosopher, 
242 and n. 3 ; 243, n. 1, 2 ; opi- 
nion of, 248, n. 2, 

Animalia, 129 and n. 3. 

Animals, slaughtered by priests, 
126 and n. 1. 

Anothergates adventure, 101 and 
n. 1. 

Anthroposophus, nickname of Dr 
Vaughan, 26, n. 1. 

Antinomian principle, 182, n. 4. 

Ants' eggs, 97 and n. 2. 

Antwerp Cathedral, 216 and n. 5. 

Apollo, oracle of, 156 and n. 3 ; 
petitions to, 49 and n. 3. 

Appropinque, 105 and n. 4. 

Aprons, blue, 362 and n. 1. 

Aqua-vita?, 406 and n. 2. 

Aquinas, Thomas, 10, n. 4. 

Arctophylax, 51 andn. 1. 

Argyle, Earl of, sneer at, 206 and n. 1. 

Arms, the law of, 111, n. 2; 112, 
113, 115 and n. 1. 



451 



Arsie-Versie, 112 and :i. 2. 

Aruspicy and Augury, 21 1 and n. 6. 
Assembly of Divines. 35, n. 7 ; the 

great gorbellied idol, 125, n. 2. 
Astrologers, impostures of, 257 and 

n. 1. 
Astyages, King of Media, his dream, 

241 and n. 1. 
Atoms, theories respecting, 44, n. 1 ; 

on the brains of animals, 259 

and n. 1. 
Attorney, confession of one, 312. 
Augurs, determinations of the, 242, 

n. 1. 
Augustus, tale respecting, 241 and 

n.3. 
Averrhoes, 240 ; some account of, 

240, n. 3. 
Averruncate, meaning to eradicate, 

34 and n. 1. 
Ay, me ! what perils do environ, 

'&c, 86. 

Babel, labourers of, 8. 

Backgammon, 369 and n. 7. 

i aeon, Roger, his brazen head, 155, 

n.3; 277, n. 2; some account 

of, 220, n. 2. 
Bacrack, Hoccamore, and Mum, 

406 and n. 3. 
Baker, malignant, 387 and n. 3. 
Baptism, 340 and n. 2. 
Barber, John, monument erected 

by, to the memory of Butler, 

preface, 14. 
Barclay, Dr, on shaving the beard, 

141, n. 2. 
Bardashing, 278 and n. 3. 
Barebones, the leather-seller, 232 

and n. 2. 
Barnacles, turn soland geese, 354 

and n. 2. 
Barratry, 419 and n. 5. 
Bassa, the illustrious, 168, n. 3. 
Bassas, 406 and n. 5. 
Bastile, 83. 

Battery, action of, 419 and n. 1. 
Bear, cubs of the, 130 and n. 1 ; 

shortness of its tail, 250 andn. 1. 
Bear-baiting, 31 and n. 1 ; custom 

of, 117, n. 1. 



Beards, custom of wearing, 14, n. 3 ; 

15, n. 2, 3 ; vow respecting, 15, 

n. 5 ; respect paid to, 141 and 

n. 1, 2 ; 142, n. 3; importance 

of, 430. 
Beast, a game at cards, 304 and 

n. 3 ; number of the, 361 and 

n. 4. 
Beaumont and Fletcher, quoted, 

95, n. 1. 
Becanus, Goropius, Teutonic spoken 

in Paradise, 11, n. 2. 
Bed of Honour, 119 and n. 3. 
Bees, generation of, 326 and n. 2. 
Behmen, Jacob, 26, n. 1 ; 238 and 

n. 4. 
Bell and the Dragon's chanlains, 

125, n. 2. 
Berenice's periwig, 247 and n. 1. 
Biancafiore, love of Florio for, 168, 

n. 5. 
Bibles, corrupted texts of, 326, 37 1 

and n. 1. 
Bilks, 227 ; meaning of the word, 

227, n. 3. 
Bill-running, custom of, 47, n. 4. 
Birds, the speech of, 26 and n. 4 ; 

the mute of, 228 and n. 5 ; caught 

in nets, 237 and n. 1. 
Birtha, supplants the Princess 

Rhodalind, 58, n. 3. 
Bishops, outcry against, compared 

to a dog with a black and white 

face, 63 and n. 5. 
Blood, transfusion of the, 264 and 

n. 1. 
Blows that bruise, 17 andn. 1. 
Board, a two-inch one, 442 and ft. 1. 
Board her, 274 and n. 3. 
Boccalini's Advertisement from 

Parnassus, used by Butler, 49, 

n. 3. 
Bodin, John, an eminent geo- 
grapher, 249 and n. 3. 
Bolter, 128 ; a coarse sieve, 128, n. 1. 
Bombastus, kept a devil's bird, 237 

and n. 3. 
Bond, Mr, strange sermon of, 33, 

n. 2. 
Bongey, a Franciscan, 421 and 

n.3. 

2g2 



452 



Boniface VIII., Pope, 127 ; his 
ambition and insolence, 127, n, 1. 

Bonner, Bishop, 193 and n. 5. 

Book of Sports, 32, n. 1. 

Booker, John, the astrologer, 226, 
n. 4 ; 257 and n. 3. 

Boot, on the stocks, 173 and n. 5. 

Boots, dissertation upon, 59, n. 4. 

Borgia, Alexander, 149, n. 3. 

Borgia, Lucretia, 151, n. 3. 

Bosworth-field, 107, n. 3. 

Boute-feus, 365 and n. 2. 

Braggadocio huffer, 255 and n. 3. 

Brand's Antiquities, 223, n. 3 ; 234, 
n. 2; 385, n. 1. 

Brayed in a mortar, 263 and n. 6. 

Brazilians, hardness of their heads, 
155, n. 4. 

Breeches, large, of Henry VIII., 
17, n. 1. 

Brentford Fair, 254. 

Bretheren, 333 and n. 3. 

Bricklayers, 254 and n. 4. 

Bridewell, and Houses of Correc- 
tion, 175 and n. 2. 

Bright, Henry, epitaph on, preface, 2. 

Broking -trade in love, 281 and n. 3. 

Brotherhood, holy, 315 and n. 1. 

Brothers and Sisters, marriages be- 
tween, 151 and n. 2. 

Brown-bills, 349 and n. 1. 

Bruin, the bear, his birth, parentage, 
and education, 52 ; overwhelmed 
by Hudibras, 75 ; breaks loose 
and routs the rabble, 76 ; is pur- 
sued by the dogs, 87 ; his valiant 
resistance, 88 ; rescued by Trulla 
and Cerdon, 89 ; laid up in ordi- 
nary, 91. 

Brutus and Cassius, contest between, 
195, n. 3. 

Bucephalus, feared his own shadow, 
145, n. 3. 

Buckingham, Duke of, his patron- 
age of Butler, preface, 11 ; his 
character drawn by the poet, 12. 
Bull- feasts, at Madrid, 272 and n. 2. 
Bulwer's Artificial Changeling, 155, 
n. 4; 158, n. 6; 162, n. 2; 163, 
n. 3 ; 278, n. 3. 
Bum-bailiffs, custom of, 19, n. 2. 



Burgess, Daniel, and the Cheshire 
cheese, 126, n. 4. 

Burial-office, 440, n. 4. 

Burton, Prynne, and Bastwick, se- 
vere sentence upon, 361, n. 2; 
honours paid to, 366, n. 3. 

Butcher, his dress described, 72 and 
n. 2, 3. 

Butler, Samuel, some account of his 
father, Life, i; his birth, i; his 
education, ii ; his school-fellows, 
ii ; becomes clerk to Mr Jefferies, 
iii: studies painting, iii ; his situa- 
tion with the Countess of Kent, 
iv; ground-work of his Hudibras, 
iv; lives in the service of Sir 
Samuel Luke, v; popularity of 
his poem, v; various editions of 
it, vi ; injunction forbidding any 
one to peruse it, vi ; its high esti- 
mation at Court, vii ; patronized 
by Hyde and Dorset, vii; sensa- 
tion produced by the publication of 
his poem of Hudibras, viii ; ap- 
pointed Secretary to the Earl of 
Carberry, viii; his supposed po- 
verty, ix ; his residence in France, 
x ; his observations while in that 
country, x ; marries Mrs Her- 
bert, xi ; the Duke of Bucking- 
ham's high opinion of his merits, 
xi ; his character of the Duke, 
xii ; his death and funeral, xiii ; 
monument to his memory in St 
Paul's, Covent Garden, xiii ; in- 
scription on it, xiv ; hismonument 
in Westminster Abbey, xiv ; pro- 
position to erect one in Covent 
Garden Church, xv ; marble tablet 
to, in Strensham Church, xv; 
work published as his Remains, 
xvi ; his knowledge of law-terms, 
xvi; Dr Johnson's high sense of 
his merits, xvii ; character of his 
great poem, xviii ; translated into 
French, xix ; his imitators, xix ; 
the Satyre Menippee, xx ; great 
object of his satire, xxi ; charac- 
ters introduced into his poem, xxi ; 
criticisms on it, xxiii. 
Butler's Remains quoted, 255 and 



453 



n. 1; 260, n. 3; 265 and n. 1; 

289,11.2; 366, n. 3. 
Butter, refuses to come, 215 and 

n. 1. 
By-bets, 370 and n. 1. 
Byfield, Adoniram, 353 and n. 3. 

Cabal, or Cabbala, 25 and n. 1. 
Cabals, Committees of, 365 and n. 3. 
Cacus, the robber, 152, n. 1. 
Cadmus, the fable of, 65, n. 1. 
Cassar, had a horse with corns on 

his toes, 21 and n. 2 ; stirrups 

not in use in his time, 21, n. 3 ; 

alluded to, 55, n. 2 ; death of, 

241 and n. 2. 
Calamy (the Presbyterian preacher), 

exhortations of, 65, n. 2 ; 353 and 

n. 1. 
Caldesed, 254 and n. 3. 
Caliban, 278. 
Caligula, Emperor, 409 anl n. 1 ; 

boasted of embracing the moon, 

269, n. 2. 
Calleches, 362 and n. 2. 
Cambay, the Prince of, his offensive 

breath, 164. 
Camilla of Virgil's iEneid, alluded 

to, 89, n. 3. 
Camisado, 387, n. 4. 
Cannon-ball, 230 and n. 2. 
Cant, derivation of the word, 358 

and n. 3. 
Capel, Lord, 43, n. 2. 
Caperdewsie, 166 and n. 3. 
Capoched,194; means hood-winked, 

194, n. 2. 
Caps, black, lined with white, 124 

and n. 3. 
Carazan, a province of Tartary, cu- 
rious custom in, 43, n. 1. 
Carberry, the Earl of, Butler ap- 
pointed Secretary to, preface, 8. 
Cardan, belief of, 249 ; particulars 

respecting, 249, n. 5. 
Carneades, the Academic, 6, n. 4. 
Carriers' packs and bells, 341 and 

n. 4. 
Carroches, 210, 402 and n. 2. 
Carte's Life of Ormonde, 422, 
n. 4. 



Carvajal, Peter and John, 276, 
n. 1. 

Case, the Presbyterian minister, 
sermons of, 61, n. 1 ; 326, n. 4 ; 
353 and n. 1. 

Cassiopeia's Chair, 247 and n. 3. 

Catasta, 145; a cage or prison, 145, 
n. 5. 

Cats, worshipped by the Egyptians, 
34, n. 7. 

Catterwauling tricks, 292. 

Cautery, the use of, 309 and n. 1 . 

Centaurs, the, 315 and n. 2. 

Cerberus, wears three heads, 355. 

Cerdon, the one-eyed cobbler, 58 
and n. 6 ; 89, 95, 104, 108. 

Ceruse, 158 and n. 5. 

Cervantes, dignity of, preface, 23. 

Chserephon, 224 and n. 5. 

Chair, the stercorary, 128, n. 2. 

Chaldean Conjurors, 250 and n. 6. 

Chameleons, said to live on air, 137, 
n. 3. 

Chancery-practice, the common 
forms of, 187 and n. 6. 

Charlatan, a quack doctor, 366 and 
n. 2. 

Charles I., war between, and the 
Parliament, 34, n. 2 ; his political 
and natural person, 62, n. 5 ; 68, 
n. 4; Members ordered to be 
prosecuted by, 63, n. 4 ; his treat- 
ies with the rebel army, 177, n. 
2; sale of his estates, 328, n. 5. 

Charles II., speech of, 30, n. 4; 
treatment of, 123. 

Charms, maladies cured by, 223 
and n. 3. 

Cheats and Impostors, artifices of, 
210 and n. 1 ; defeated of their 
aim, 332 and n. 4. 

Cheek by joul, 140 and n. 2. 

Cheese, where to cut it, 126 and n. 4. 
Cheshire, remonstrance of the gen- 
tlemen of, to Parliament, 126,n. 5. 
Chevy Chase, song of, quoted, 89, 

n. 1. 
Chickens, counting them before they 

are hatched, 251 and n. 2. 
Children, frightening of, 372 and 
n. 3. 



454 



Chillingworth, 440, n. 4. 
Chimera, 130 ; fable of, 130, n. 2. 
Chineses, lie in, in their ladies' 

stead, 293 and n. 2. 
Chiron, the Centaur, 47, n. 2. 
Choused, origin of the word, 214, 

n. 6 ; used, 254, n. 3. 
Christ, his attestation to the piety 

of woman, 203 and n. 2. 
Christmas-day, a fast and feast, 13, 

n. 3. 
Church militant, explained, 12, n. 4. 
Church, plunder of the, 380 and 

n. 3, 4. 
Church dignitaries, 399, n. 2. 
Church livings, 312 and n. 4. 
Clapper-clawing, 175 and n. 1. 
Clap-up souls, 321 and n. 2. 
Clarendon, Lord, remarks of, 3, 

n. 2; 62, n. 5 ; 81, n. 1. 
Clarges, Anne, mistress of General 

Monk, 430, n. 2. 
Cleveland, his letter to the Pro- 
tector, 114, n. 3. 
Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, the 

three destinies, 16, n. 1. 
Coachman, the, 247 and n. 2 
Coals, extracted from wood, 151 

and n. 7 ; exorbitant price of, 

340 and n. 4. 
Cobler and Vicar of Bray, a poem, 

15, n. 5. 
Cock-a-hoop, 86 and n. 4. 
Cock-crow, superstition respecting 

it, 322 and n.4. 
Colon, the hostler, his character, 

60 and n. 1 ; alluded to, 74, 103. 
Columbus, discoveries of, 242. 
Comet, supposed to portend some 

calamity, 14, n. 4 ; 45, n. 6 
Commissions, thrown up, 76. 
Committee-men, 7. 
Committee of Safety, sneer at the, 

336 and n. 2 ; 337 and n. 3. 
Committees, grievances of, 70 and 

n. 4. 
Complexion, man judged by the, 

124, n. 2. 
Conclave and Conventicle, 382 and 

n. 4. 
Confession-free, 309 and n. 2. 



Conscience, liberty of, 34 ; the wear 
and tear of, 309 and n. 4; 313 
and n. 3 ; 356 and n. 1. 

Conscience-stretchers, 421 and n. 2. 

Consciences, kept in cases, 172 and 
n. 2. 

Constellations, called houses, 230 
and n. 1. 

Constollidation, 125, n. 2. 

Consults, 332 and n. 3. 

Cook, solicitor, employed against the 
king, hanged at Tyburn, 387, 
n. 4. 

Cooper, Sir Anthony Ashley, 341, 
n. 6; 342, n. 1. 

Copernicus, 249 and n. 1 . 

Cordeliere, order of, 15. 

Corona Civica, 404 and n. 3. 

Coscinomancy, explained, 234, n. 2. 

Cossacks of the Don, 52, n. 3. 

Coughing and hemming, 7, n. 4. 

Coursing, a University-term, 377 
and n. 3. 

Covenant, taking of the, 218 and 
n. 7; 260 and n.4; 363 and n. 1. 

Covenanters, declaration of the, 
177, n. 3. 

Covenanting Trustees, 321 and n. 3. 

Covert-Baron, 200 and n. 6. 

Covin, a term in law, 443 and 
n. 1. 

Cow, print of, the emblem of the 
Commonwealth, 39, n. 4. 

Cow-itch, 279 and n. 4. 

Coy, 301 andn. 2. 

Cranfield, his panegyric on Tom 
Coriate, 6, n. 1. 

Crincum-Crancum, 293. 

Crisis, 146 and n. 5. 

Croft, Herbert, Bishop of Hereford, 
400. 

Cromwell, Colonel, anecdote of, 
33, n. 5. 

Cromwell, Oliver, joke upon, 19, 
n. 7; his conduct to Lord Capel, 
81, n. 1 ; prudence of, 103, n. 3; 
anecdote of, 177, n. 1 ; declaration 
of, 179, n. 1 ; turns out the Par- 
liament, 179 andn. 6; filthy con- 
duct of, 207, n. 4 ; hurricane at 
the time of his death, 334 and n. 3. 



455 



Cromwell, Richard, 40, n. 1 ; 335, 

n. 5. 
Crook and Hutton, 364 and n. 5. 
Cross and Pile, 258 and n. 1 ; 292. 
Crowdero, the fiddler, character of, 

46 ; alluded to, 76, 77, 78, 80, 

82,83,84, 117. 
Crowds and bases, 172 and n. 3. 
Crows, belief respecting, 105 and 

n. 2 ; birds of ill-omen, 241, n. 4. 
Croysado, General, 375 and n. 2. 
Crup, 323 and n. 1. 
Cucking-stool, 202 and n. 1. 
Cuckolds, legal, 289 and n. 3 ; their 

names invoked in carving, 186 

and n. 1. 
Cudgels, crossing of the,328 and n. 3. 
Cully-sex, 429 and n. 2, 
Culprits, held up their hand at their 

trial, 260 and n. 5. 
Curmudgin, 193 and n. 1. 
Curule, 32 and n. 2 ; 202. 
Cut-purse, 70 ; meaning of the term, 

70 and n. 3. 
Cutpurse, Moll, 57. 

Dalilahs, 372 and n. 4. 
Damosels, distressed, 165 and n. 1. 
Dancing jigs, 432 and n. 2. 
Darius, the horse of, 47, n. 5. 
Darkness, the Secular Prince of, 

258 and n. 3. 
Datura, properties of, 280. 
Davenant, Sir William, 2, n. 2 ; 58, 

n. 4 ; 46; n. 1 ; 56, n. 4. 
Death, from fear, 143, n. 1 ; sudden, 

252 and n. 2 ; would not depart, 

290 and n. 2. 
Dee, Dr John, the reputed magician, 

220; some account of, 220, n. 

4; 221; his angelical stone, 237, 

n. 4. 
Democritus, the laughing philoso- 
pher, 139 and n. 2. 
Dennis, Mr, inscription written by, 

preface, 15. 
Deodand, meaning of the term, 440 

and n. 1. 
Dependences, doctrine of, 355 and 

n. 5. 
Desborough, 337 and n. 2. 



Destinies, the three, 16, n. 1. 

Devil, the, pulling his beard, 95 and 
n. 5 ; beat a drum, 140 and n. 3 ; 
ledger sent to, 215 and n. 3 ; ap- 
peared to Luther, 216 and n. 4 ; 
charms for raising, 235 and n. 5; 
his oracles, 316 and n. 3 ; tempt- 
ations of the, 320 and n. 2 ; his 
mother, 327 and n. 4. 

Dewtry, 279 and n. 5. 

Dial, true to the sun, 333 and n. 2. 

Dialecticos, 129 and n. 1. 

Dido, story of, 22, n. 4. 

Digby, Sir Kenelm, 4, n. 4 ; 146, 
n. 4; his book on bodies, 162, n. 
3 ; sneered at, 351, n. 1. 

Diodorus Siculus, curious people 
described by, 8, n. 2; alluded to, 
380, n. 2. 

Diomedes, King of Thrace, his 
horses, 60, n. 2. 

Directory, the, 194 and n. 4. 

Dirty Lane, 149 and n. 5. 

Disciplinarians, doctrine of the, 36, 
n. 1 ; 122, n. 4. 

Disparata, 133 and n. 1. 

Dispensations, out-goings, &c, 79, 
n. 5. 

Dissenters, left each other in the 
lurch, 260 and n. 1 ; their affect- 
ed sanctity, 285 and n. 1 ; doc- 
trine of the, 370, n. 4. 

Distrain on soul and body, 321 and 
n. 6. 

Diurnals, or dailv papers, 87 and n. 
2; 138 and n. ]. 

Divorces, judges of, 290 and n. I. 

Doctor, epidemic, 54 and n. 5. 

Dog, draws his chain after him, 213 
and n. 1 ; a cunning one, 219 
and n. 2, 3. 

Dog-bolt, 136 andn. 5. 

Doggerel, 227, n. 1. 

Dole, a common saying, 107 and 
n. 2. 

Doll, Common, 346 and n. 6. 

Don Quixote, routs a flock of sheep, 
54 and n. 2 ; remark of, 17, n. 3 ; 
penance of, 168 and n. 2 ; to 
Sancho, 195, n. 2. 

Donship, 398 and n. 3 



456 



Don Tenise, a romance, 438, n. 4. 
Donzel, 234; meaning of the term, 

234, n. 3. 
Dorset, Lord, his admiration of 

Hudibras, preface, 7. 
Doubtless the pleasure is as great, 

of being cheated, &c, 210. 
Douce in water, 154 and n. 1. 
Dover, 284. 
Downing, Dr, absolves the Puritans 

taken at Brentford from their 

oaths, 185, n. 1. 
Drazels, 303; meaning of the word, 

303, n. 2. 
Dress, French fashion of, 116, n. 1. 
Drudging, or drudgery, 19. 
Druids, money borrowed bv the, 

253 and n. 1. 
Drum-heads, 263 and n. 4. 
Dryden, his censure of Butler, pre- 
face, 23. 
Duck and drake, 224 and n. 2. 
Ducking-stool, account of, 202, 

n. 1. 
Dudgeon, civil, 3; a short sword 

or dagger, 19, n. 4. 
Dun, the hangman, 386 and n. 1. 
Duns Scotus, 10, n. 4. 
Dysart, Lady, 430, n. 2. 

Ears, pricking up of, 3, n. 6 ; to see 
with, 395 and n. 3. 

Earth-worms, their impotence, 344 
and n. 1. 

Echo, dialogue with, 93. 

Efficace, 351 and n. 3. 

Eggs, mystical import qf, 200 and 
n. 4 ; on trying sound from, 264, 
n. 3. 

Egyptians, their worship of dogs 
and cats, 34 and n. 7. 

Elenchi, 128 and n. 3. 

Elephants, said to be in the moon, 
229, n. 3. 

Elfs and Goblins derived from 
Guelphs and Ghibellines, 355, 
n. 7. 

Empedocles, a Pythagorean philoso- 
pher and poet, 42, n. 1 ; 248 ; 
some account of, 248, n. 3 ; de- 
claration of, 291. 



Engagement, the, 178 and n. 5. 
England, successful in war, 448 and 

n. 1. 
English Moll, 56 and n. 6. 
Enucleate, 213 and n. 4. 
Ephesians, 384 and n. 1. 
Erased, 402 and n. 3. 
Essex, Earl of, 179 and n. 1, 2; 

forced to resign his command, 

375 and n. 2. 
Evelyn, thinks Adam and Eve had 

no navels, 11, n. 3. 
Excommunication, 321 and n. 5. 
Executions and exigents, 305 and 

n. 2. 
Exempts of saints, 351 and n. 2. 
Exigent, or writ, 19, n. 1. 
Expedient, 180 ; a term used by 

the Sectaries, 180, n. 2; 348, 

n. 2. 
Eye, white of the, 285 and n. 1 . 

Facet doublet, 158 and n. 3. 

Facetiae Facetiarum, 47, n. 1. 

Fadged, 327 and n. 6. 

Faggots, 381 and n. 3. 

Fairies, belief respecting, 302, n. 3. 

Faith, not due to the wicked, 183 

and n. 3. 
Fame, humorous description of, 

137, n. 2, 4 ; 138 and n. 5. 
Fanshawe, his translation of Horace, 

251 and n. 1. 
Farthingale, 18 and n. 1. 
Fast and loose, game of, 343 and 

n. 4. 
Fear, groundless, 396 and n. 2. 
Felony, compounding of, a penal 

offence, 226, n. 3. 
Ferdinand IV. of Spain, his sin- 
gular death, 276, n. 1. 
Fermentation of liquors, old notion 

respecting, 146, n. 4. 
Field, Mr, charge against, 327. 
Fifth- Monarchy men, 337, n. 1 

383 and n. 1. 
Fighting and running away, 106 

and n. 1 ; 403 n. 1. 
Fines, on faith and love, 301 and n. 

3 ; 303; signification of, 303, n. L 
Fingle-fangle, 411. 



457 



Fire-fork, 256, a. 2. 

Fish, speculations about, 182, n. 3. 

Fisher, Jasper, 363; some account 
of, 363, n. 2. 

Fisk, the astrologer, 228 ; particu- 
lars respecting, 228, n. 4. 

Fit, playing a, 173 and n. 4. 

Fitters, 272 ; meaning of the word, 
272, n. 1. 

Flagellants, amatorial, of Spain, 166, 
n. 2. 

Flea, its long jump, 224, n. 5. 

Fleetwood, the son-in-law of Crom- 
well, 337 and n. 2. 

Flesh is grass, 60 and n. 3. 

Flies, wasps, and hornets, 54, n. 3. 

Florio, and Biancafiore, 168 and 
n. 5. 

Fludd, Robert, 26, n. 1. 

Foot, the right to be put foremost, 
241, n. 3. 

Fop-doodle, 254 and n. 1 

Ford, Mr, sermons of, 61, n. 1. 

Foulis, Mr, story told by, 183, n. 5. 

Fowl-catching, 210 and n. 4. 

Fox, cunning of the, 258 and n. 4 ; 
weighs geese, 291, n. 5. 

Franc-pledge, view of, 185 and n. 4, 

Freedom, conferred by a blow, 144 
and n. 1. 

French goods, 294 and n. 1. 

Fulham's, 160; a cant word, 160, 
n. 1. 

Gabardine, 104 ; a coarse robe, or 

mantle, 104, n. 1. 
Galen and Paracelsus, 412 and n. 3. 
Galileo, observations of, 242, n. 2. 
Gallows, fear of the, 357 and n. 1. 
Ganzas, or geese, 245 and n. 1. 
Garters, new, 304 and n. 6. 
Gascoign, Sir Bernard, respited, 84, 

n. 3. 
Gath, men of, 334. 
Gazettes, 405 and n. 1. 
Generation on Faith, 289 and n. 1. 
Genethliacks, or Chaldeans, 240 and 

n. 4. 
Gentee, 163 and n. 4. 
Geoffrey of Monmouth, 2, n. 1. 
Geomancy, 308 and n. 1. 



George-a-Green, 193 and n. 4. 

Gill, or girl, 201 and n. 2. 

Gizards, spiritual, 355 and n. 2. 

Glass, the multiplying, 280 and n. 5. 

Gleaves, or swords, 349 and n. 2. 

Glory and shame, 145 and n. 2. 

Glow-worm, its luminous tail, 230 
and n. 4. 

God, a child of, 312 and n. 1. 

Godwin, afterwards Bishop of Here- 
ford, his astronomical romance, 
245, n. 1. 

Godwyn, Dr Thomas, 199, u. 2. 

Gold and silver, marked by the sun 
and moon in chemistry, 153, n. 1. 

Gondibert, preferred a country lass, 
58 and n. 3. 

Goodwin, Thomas, a Calvinistic In- 
dependent, 199 and n. 2. 

Gossip, tattling, 139 and n. 1, 3. 

Government, not to be upheld with- 
out the aid of poetry, 58, n. 4. 

Grace, introduced by sin, 375 and 
n. 1. 

Grandier, the curate of Loudun, 
217, n. 3. 

Gratiae Ludentes, an old book, 22, 
n. 1. 

Great cry and little wool, 37, n. 1. 

Green-hastings, 263 and n. 3. 

Green-men, 293 and n. 3. 

Gregory VII., Pope, his insolence 
and ambition, 127 and n. 1. 

Gresham-carts, 323 and n. 2. 

Grey, Dr, suppositions of, 98, n. 4 ; 
164, n. 2 ; anecdote related by, 
115, n. 2; stories told by, 190, 
n. 1 ; 192, n. 2 ; 316, n. 5 ; al- 
luded to, 195, n. 1, 3; 202, n. 5. 

Grey mare the better horse, 200 
and n. 5. 

Grizel, patient, 72 and n. 4. 

Grosted, Bob, 220 and n. 2. 

Groves, cutting down of, 338 and 
n. 4. 

Guelphs and Gibellines, 355 and 
n. 7. 

Gunpowder plot, 382, n. 2. 

Guts in 's brains, 121 and n. 2. 

Guy, Earl of Warwick, 54 and 
n. 1. 



458 



Gymnosophists, 219 ; t a sect of In- 
dian philosophers, 219, n. 1. 



Habergeon, 104; its signification, 

104, n. 2. 
Hab-nab, 253 and n. 3. 
Hales, Alexander, 10, n. 4. 
Halfpenny, dropped in shoes, 317 

and n. 1. 
Hall, Thomas, preface, 2. 
Halter-proof, 273 and n. 1. 
Handbook of Proverbs, 9, n. 3; 

193, n. 2, 3 ; 200, n. 5 : 207, n. 2 ; 

241, n. 3; 251, n. 2 ; 259, n. 4. 
Handmaids, a puritan expression, 

205 and n. 1. 
Hangman's wages, 358 and n. 1. 
Hans-Towns, 336 and n. 5. 
Hard words ridiculed, 7, n. 5. 
Hardiknute, 306 and n. 5. 
Hares, sexes of, 201 and n. 1. 
Harrington, Sir John, quoted, 93, 

n. 4. 
Harrison, the regicide, 81, n. 3. 
Hatto, Bishop, eaten by rats and 

mice, 143 and n. 3. 
Haut-gouts, douillies, or ragouts, 

158 and n. 1. 
Have and to hold, 288 and n. 4. 
Hawkers and interlopers, 417, n. 1. 
Hazard noses, 167 and n. 4. 
Hazel-bavin, 387 and n. 2. 
Hazlerig, Sir Arthur, particulars 

respecting, 386, n. 1 ; 387, n. 1, 

2 ; his lobsters, 409, n. 2. 
He that fights and runs away, 106, 

n. 1; 403, n, 1. 
Heaven, the Saints' employment 

there, 427, n. 1. 
Head, the brazen, 55 ; device of 

the, 55, n. 5. 
Heart-breakers, or curls, 15, n. 2. 
Hebrew roots, 6. 

Hector, stunned by Ajax, 78, n. 1. 
Hemp, on wooden anvils, 281 and 

n. 1. 
Hemp-plot, 328 and n. 4. 
Henderson, 377 ; hisdeath, 377, n. 1. 
Henry VIII., his siege of Boulogne, 
17, n. 2 ; anecdote of his parrot, 

26, n. 5. 



Herbert, Mrs, married to Butler, 

preface, 11, 15. 
Hercules, cleansed the stables of 

Augeas, 60 and n. 4 ; bewails the 

loss of Hylas, 92 and n. 4; the 

kill-cow, 148 and n. 3. 
Hermaphrodite, 292. 
Hermes Trismegistus, 51, n. 2. 
Hermetic-men, 280 and n. 1. 
Herring, as dead as a, 259 and n. 4. 
Hertfordshire petition, 66, n. 3. 
Hewson, Colonel, 26, n. 6 ; 56, n. 

4 ; 377, n. 4.' 
Heylin, Dr, 43, n. 1. 
Hiccius doctius, 415 and n. 4 ; 420. 
High Court of Justice, instituted, 

186 and n. 2. 
Highwayman's advice, 154, n. 3. 
Hockley, 118, n. 2. 
Hocus-pocus, 420 and n. 2. 
Hoghan Moghan, 190; 318 and 

n. 2. 
Holborn, cavalcade of, 345 and n. 3. 
Holding-forth, 226 ; meaning of the 

term, 226, n. 2. 
Hollis, 341, n. 6. 
Honour, like a glassy bubble, 188 

and n. 3 ; the seat of, 256 and 

n. 3. 
Hopkins, cruelty of, 215, n. 5 ; trial 

of, 216, n. 3. 
Horoscope, 222, n. 3 ; 253 and n. 2. 
Horses, afflicted with sciatica, 98, 

n. 1 ; custom of tolling at fairs, 

161 and n. 6. 
Horse-shoes on stable-doors, 223 

and n. 4. 
Hotham, Sir John, his condemna- 
tion, 187, n. I. 
Hour-glass, used in preaching, 120 

and n. 1. 
House of Lords, declared useless, 

179, n. 5. 
Howel's Life of Louis XIII., 150, 

n. 1. 
Huckle, 76, meaning of the word, 

76, n. 3. 
Hudibras, poem of, its publication, 

Life, v ; injunction forbidding 

any one to print it, vi ; its recep- 
tion at Court, vii; admired by 



459 



Lord Dorset, vii ; its vast popu- 
larity, vii; publication of the third 
part of, xiii; variety of knowledge 
displayed in it, xvii ; characters in 
it, xviii, xxi; its host of imitators, 
xix; compared to the Satyre 
Menippee, xx ; its wonderful in- 
fluence, xxi ; probable derivation 
of the name, 2, n. 1. 
Hudibras, Sir, his character, 4; rides 
out a-colonelling, 4; his learning, 
6 ; his language, 8 ; his religion, 
12 ; his beard, 14 ; his person, 16 ; 
his dress, 17; his arms, 18; his 
steed, 21 ; his speech on bear- 
baiting, 31 ; his defence of Sy- 
nods, 36; advances to disperse 
the rabble, 46 ; his speech, 61 ; 
encounters Talgol, 72 ; is dis- 
mounted, and falls on the bear, 
75 ; assailed by Crowdero, 76 ; 
rescued by Ralpho, 77 ; his tri- 
umphal procession, 82; commits 
Crowdero to the stocks, 84 ; re- 
tires to rest, 96 ; his love-adven- 
ture recounted, 97 ; his amorous 
soliloquy, 99 ; sets out to visit 
the widow, 100 ; intercepted by 
the rabble, 101 ; his harangue, 
101 ; his method of attack, 102 ; 
struck down by Colon with a 
stone, 103 ; wounds Magnano, 
104; his desponding speech, 105; 
rallies, 106 ; attacked by Orsin 
and Cerdon, 108 ; exults in his 
supposed victory, 109 ; encour- 
ages Ralpho, 110; dismounted 
by Trulla, 111 ; attempts to bully 
Trulla, 112; combats with, and 
is defeated by her, 113 ; submits 
to her mercy, 115; led captive in 
procession, 117; committed to 
the stocks, 118 ; his philosophy, 
119 ; defends Synods from the 
aspersions of Ralpho, 121, 129, 
130 ; visited by the widow, 139 ; 
his confusion on seeing her, 140 ; 
his conference with her, 141 ; his 
philosophical contempt of pain, 
142 ; his defence of beating, 145 ; 
his arguments in favour of mutual 



love, 1 47 ; asserts the irresisti- 
bility of love, 148 ; his eulogium 
on riches, 153 ; his high-flown 
professions of love, 156 ; engages 
to submit to flagellation, 169 ; is 
set at liberty, 169 ; retires to rest, 
170; rises to perform his penance, 
174; his scruples of conscience, 
174 ; desires Ralpho's advice, 
175 ; his arguments in favour of 
perjury, 184 ; suggests whipping 
by proxy, 191 ; appoints Ralpho 
his substitute, 191 ; threatens 
him, on his refusal to officiate, 
192 ; draws to chastise him, 195 ; 
alarmed by the approach of the 
Skimmington, 196 ; his observa- 
tions on the procession, 199; re- 
solves to oppose it, 202 ; his 
speech to the multitude, 203 ; 
attacked with missiles, 205 ; takes 
to flight, 206 ; his consolatory 
speech, 206 ; sets out for the wi- 
dow's house, 212; his doubts of 
success, 212 ; resolves to consult 
a conjuror, 219 ; visits Sidrophel, 
232 ; his conference with him, 
233 ; ridicules astrology, 234 ; 
his arguments respecting astro- 
nomy, 248 ; his altercation with 
Sidrophel, 253 ; vanquishes Si- 
drophel and Whachum,256 ; cross- 
examines their pockets, 257 ; is 
deceived and scared by Sidrophel, 
259 ; resolves to leave Ralpho in 
the lurch, 260 ; flies, 261 ; pro- 
ceeds to visit the widow, 271 ; 
arrives at her house, 274 ; his 
address to her, 275 ; relates his 
exploits and sufferings, 277 ; is 
interrupted and contradicted by 
the widow, 276 ; protests his ve- 
racity, 285 ; defends the institu- 
tion of marriage, 297 ; alarmed 
by the supposed approach of Si- 
drophel, 306 ; entrenches himself 
beneath a table, 307 ; is discovered 
and dragged out of his hiding-place 
by the devils, 308 ; is cudgelled 
and catechised, 309 ; confesses 
his treachery, 309 ; expounds his 



4G0 



principles, 310 ; left to his medi- 
tations in the dark, 314 ; is jeered 
by an unseen spirit, 315 ; his 
controversy with the spirit, 317 ; 
escapes by the spirit's assistance, 
323 ; his flight, 324 ; discovers 
his champion to be Ralpho, 397 ; 
finds he has been out-witted, 400 ; 
re-assumes his courage, 401 ; 
harangues on the art of war, 407 ; 
ridicules, but adopts, Ralpho's 
advice, 413 ; repairs to counsel 
learned in the law, 415 ; his con- 
ference with the lawyer, 417 ; 
resolves to address a letter to the 
widow, 423 ; his epistle, 424 ; 
despatches it by his Squire, 435 ; 
the lady's answer to the Knight, 
436. 

Hue and cry, 161 and n. 3. 

Huffer, meaning of the word, 255 
and n. 3. 

Hugger-mugger, 95 and n. 4 ; 156 ; 
399 and n. 1. 

Hugo, scout-master to Gondiberl, 
46, n. 1. 

Human species, its original forma- 
tion, 296 and n. 3. 

Hums and hahs, 374 and n. 2. 

Hutchinson, Dr, his Essay on 
Witchcraft, 215, n. 5 ; 216, n. 3. 

Hypocrisy, the sin of, 310. 



Ibrahim, the illustrious Bassa, 168, 

n. 3. 
Ichneumon, or water-rat of the 

Nile, 34, n. 8. 
Ideas, not in the soul, 25, n. 3. 
Idus and Calends, 251 and n. 1 . 
Ignorance, asserted to be the mother 

of devotion, 98, n. 3. 
Imps and Teats, 395 and n. 2. 
Independents, sneer at the, 111, n. 

1 ; alluded to, 120, n. 2 ; 121, n. 1 ; 

enemies to learning, 131, n. 2 ; 

their mental reservations, 174, n. 

4 ; 175, n. 1 ; their dexterity in 

intrigue, 193, n. 6 ; treachery of 

the, 273, n. 3 ; doings of the, 

319 ; have no power, 320 and n. 

1 ; their enthusiasm, 321 and n. 



1 ; charged with altering a text 
of Scripture, 326, n. 5 ; a kind 
of church dragoons, 331 and n. 
2 ; their charges against the Pres- 
byterians, 376, n. 3. 

Indian lake, 158 and n. 5. 

Indians, 362 and n. 5 ; sacrifice to 
their idols, 175 and n. 3 : their 
actions, 362 and n. 5 ; their 
dames, 438 and n. 3. 

Infants, exchange of, 302 and n. 2. 

Insane, influenced at the change and 
full of the moon, 314 and n. 3. 

Insect weed, 395 and n. 1. 

Inward ears, 274 and n. 2. 

Inward light, 285 ; 306. 

Ion, his address to his mother Creu- 
sa, 50, n. 3. 

Irish Soldiers, with Tails, 163, 
n. 3. 

Iron, 86 and n. 1 ; burns with cold, 
291 and n. 2. 

Ironside, 306 and n. 2. 

Island, with four seas, 289 and 
n. 2. 

Isle of Wight, Treaty of, 377. 

Issachar, the tribe, of, 263, n. 1. 

Jackson, a milliner, 46, n. 3. 

Jacob's Staff, 245 and n. 2. 

Jail, perpetual, 391 and n. 2. 

James, King, his Dsemonology, 154, 
n. 2. 

Jarre, Chevalier, died from fear, 
143, n. 1. 

Jealousies and Fears, use of the 
words, 3, n. 4. 

Jefferies, Thomas, Esq., Life, iii. 

Jefferys, Judge, anecdote of, 313, 
n. 4. 

Jesuits, their equivocations, 174 
and n. 4; evasions, 183 and n. 5. 

Jesus Christ, his expected appear- 
ance, 337 and n. 1. 

Jewish Tribes, 382 and n. 1. 

Jezebel, 399, 410. 

Jiggumbobs, 272 and n. 4. 

Jimmers, Sarah. 257 and n. 3. 

Joan of Arc, 56 and n. 6 ; 445 ; par- 
ticulars respecting, 445, n. 2. 
I Joan, Pope, 198, n. 5 ; 128, n. 2. 



461 



Jobhemoles, 360 and n. 2 ; 367 and 

n, 5 ; 370 and n. 2. 
Jockeys, endanger their necks, 324 

and n. 1 . 
John of Leyden, 336 ; some account 

of, 336, n. 6. 
Johns of Stiles to Joans of Nokes, 

289 and n. 6. 
Jonson, Ben, his " Silent Woman," 

18, n. 2. 
Joseph's divining-cap, 24, n. 4. 
Joyce, Cornet, 12, n. 5. 
Jump, punctual, 286 and n. 1. 
Juno, the sacred geese of, 245 and 

n. 4. 
Justices of the Peace, 7 ; duty of, 

9, n. 1 ; 69, n. 2. 
Juvare, 100 and n. 1. 

Kelly, the devil appears to, 217 and 

n. 2 ; particulars respecting, 220 

and n. 5 ; feats of, 237. 
Kingston, Maypole-idol at, 253 and 

n. 4. 
Knightsbridge, 372 and n. 2. 
Knights, errant, not accustomed to 

eating and drinking, 17; of the 

post, 28 and n. 1 ; 213 and n. 3 ; 

422 and n. 2 ; degraded, 437 and 

n. 1. 
Kircher, Athanasius, 388, n. 6. 
Kvrle, the man of Ross, 186 and 

n. 1. 

Ladies, ride astride, 58 and n. 1 ; 
conversant with the healing art, 
136, n. 2; the Parliament of, 
205, n. 2 ; of the Lakes, 299 and 
n. 2 ; of the post, 439 and n. 2. 

Lambert, 337 and n. 2. 

Lamps, perpetual, of the ancients, 
147 and n. 2. 

Lance, an iron one, 256 and n. 1. 

Land and Water Saints, 70 and 
n. 1. 

Landered, 170 and n. 2. 

Laocoon, at the siege of Troy, 39, 
n. 3. 

Lapland magi, 308 and n. 2. 

Larks, catching them at night, 210 
and n. 3. 



Laski, Albertus, particulars re- 
specting, 221. 

Law, purpose of the, 180 and n. 5. 

Laws and hate, 332 and n. 1. 

Lawyers, compared with the bear- 
ward, 48 and n. 6 ; sentenced to 
lose their ears, 91, n. 3 ; practices 
of, 211 and n. 2 ; wisdom of, 412 
and n. 1 ; quarrels of, 413 and 
n. 1 ; severe strictures upon, 414 
and n. 1. 

Lay-elder, 127 and n. 4. 

Leaders, victorious style of, 101, n. 3. 

League and Covenant. See Solemn 
League and Covenant. 

Leaguer-lion's skin, 148 and n. 4. 

Learned, that is, taught, 352 andn. 3 

Learning, ancient and modern, 45, 
n. 1 ; cried down, 131, n. 2. 

Lechers, 433 and n. 2. 

Lectures, morning and evening, 
210, n. 3. 

Leech, skilful, 52. 

Leg, wooden, oath taken by the, 
82, n. 2. 

Lenthall, the bulls of, 364 and 
n. 2. 

Lescus, 220. See Laski. 

L'Estrange, Sir Roger, 1 ; his key 
to Hudibras, 127, n. 6; alluded 
to, 178, n. 3; 180, n. 1; 181, n. 
2 ; 187, n. 6. 

Levellers, or root and branch men, 
340 and n. 6. 

Levet, 197 and n. 3. 

Lewkner's Lane, 299 and n. 1. 

Liars, the founder of, 431 and n. 1. 

Light, new, and Prophecy, 244 and 
n. 3. 

Like hermit poor, a song, quoted 
84, n. 2. 

Lilburn, Colonel John, some ac- 
count of, 344, n. 3 ; 345, n. 1 ; 
arraigned for treason, 346 and n. 1. 

Lilly, William, the famous astrolo- 
ger, 8, n. 4 ; 56, n. 1 ; 214, n. 2, 
6 ; 218, n. 1, 2, and 3 ; 219, n. 
4; 221, n. 2; 223, n. 1; 226, n. 
4 ; 228, n. 3 ; 232, n. 1 ; 255, n. 2 ; 
257 and n. 3 ; 262 ; 282 and n. 1 

Lincoln's Inn, 422 and n. 3. 



462 



Linsey-Woolsey, 127 andn. 7; 340 

and n. 1. 
Linstock, or Linden-stock, 205 and 

n. 4. 
Little Sodom, 149 and n. 5. 
Liturgy-indenture, 300 and n. 3. 
Lob's pound, 115 ; a cant term for 

the jail or the stocks, 115, n. 2. 
Lobsters, 409 ; a regiment so nick- 
named, 409, n. 2. 
London, energy of the ladies of, 

204 and n. 4 ; the great Plague 

in, 312 and n. 3. 
Longees, 274 and n. 4. 
Longueville, William, the friend of 

Butler, Life, xiii, xvi. 
Loudun, the Nun of, 217 and n. 3. 
Louis XIV., remarks on, by Butler, 

Life, x. 
Love, a felon, 151 and n. 6 ; free 

as air, 287 and n. 5 ; the power 

of, 427 andn. 1. 
Love, Christopher, a Presbyterian, 

378, n. 2. 
Love-powder, 291. 
Lovers' quarrels, 301 and n. 1. 
Loyalists, succession of, 334, n. 1. 
Loyola, Ignatius, 351, n. 6 ; 388, 

n. 1. 
Lucan, lines of, 61, n. 2. 
Luez, 389 and n. 3. 
Luke, Sir Samuel, 2, n. 1 ; 4, n. 

2 ; some account of, Life, v ; 39, 

n. 1 ; alluded to, 278, n. 4 
Lunsford, 372 and n. 2. 
Lurch, 331 and n. 5. 
Luther, Martin, and the devil, 216 

and n. 4. 
Lydian and Phrygian dubs, 167 and 

n. 3. 

Macbeth quoted, 90, n. 2. 

Machiavelli, Nicholas, 314 ; some 
account of, 314, n. 1. 

Madame and a Don, 198 and n. 4. 

Magellan, discovery of, 242. 

Maggots in meat, 222 and n. 4 ; in 
cheese, 225 ; convinced to flies, 
370 and n. 6. 

Magi, the ancient, 25, n. 2 ; Per- 
sian, 327 and n. 1. 



Magician, Indian, 236 and n. 2. 

Magnano, the Tinker, his cha- 
racter and accomplishments, 55, 
56 : dismounts Ralpho by strata- 
gem, 74; wounded in imagina- 
tion, 104. 

Mahomet, his kindred ill-favoured, 
52, n. 2 ; the body of, 230 and n. 
3; 351 and n. 5; the Turk's 
patriot, 371, n. 2. 

Main-prized lover, 213 and n. 2, 

Maintenance, 419 and n. 4. 

Malignants, 67 and n. 3. 

Mall Cutpurse, 57. 

Mamalukes, particulars respecting 
the, 39, n. 1. 

Mammon and the Cause, 373 and 
n. 2. 

Man, wise, said to govern the stars, 
29, n. 1 ; in the moon, 221 and 
n. 3 ; 244 ; character of an im- 
pudent one, 267, n. 1 ; some- 
times called the Lord of the 
world, 433 and n. 1. 

Mandrake, and its wife, 295 and 
n. 4. 

Mandrill, their abduction of women, 
150, n. 4. 

Manicon, orstrychnon, 280 andn. 1. 

Manorial Rights, 440, n. 1. 

Mantos, yellow, worn by brides, 
292 andn. 3. 

Marcly Hill, 373 and n. 1. 

Margaret's fast, 348 and n. 2. 

Marriage, a dragon, 160 ; alluded 
to, 287 and n. 2 ; form of, in the 
Common Prayer Book, 302 and 
n. 4. 

Marriage-contract, 410, n. 2. 

Marry-guep, 93 and n. 2. 

Mars and Saturn, 218 and n. 6. 

Marshall, Mr, 185, n. 1. 

Marshall, Stephen, 396, n. 1. 

Martlet, 229 and n. 1. 

Mascon, saints at, 217 and n. 1. 

Matrimony and hanging, 166 and 
n. 4; words used/ in the service 
of, 346 and n. 4 ; go by destiny, 
419 and n. 2. 

May-pole idol, at Kingston, 253 
and n. 4. 



463 



Mazzard, 70 ; meaning the face or 

head, 70, n. 2. 
Meeting-houses, letting of, 311 and 

n. 1. 
Men, -with four legs, 162, n. 3 ; 

love disputing, 172 and n. 1; 

turned to ten-horned cattle, 372 

and n. 5. 
Menckenius, his anecdote of a 

quack, 225, n. 4. 
Mercuries and Diurnals, 138, n. 1. 
Mercury, the God of thieves, 28. 
Meroz, 372 and n. 6. 
Metals, applied to the flesh in cold 

climates, occasion pain, 291 and 

n. 2. 
Metaphysicians, notions of the, 

9, n. 5. 
Metempsychosis, doctrine of the, 

290 and n. 5. 
Metonymy, 235; a figure of speech, 

235, n. 3. 
Mice, attack the frogs, 408 and n. 1. 
Michaelmas and Lady-day, 305 

and n. 1. 
Ministers, called masters, 377 and 

n. 1. 
Minstrel Charter and ceremonies, 

47, n. 3. 
Miscreants, 335 and n. 1. 
Mittimus, or anathema, 321 and 

n. 2. 
Mompesson, Mr, his house haunt- 
ed, 140, n. 3. 
Monardes, Nicholas, 294, n. 1. 
Monboddo's, Lord, theory about 

tails, 163, n. I. 
Money, the mythologic sense, 152 

and n. 4 ; the fjower of, 380 and 
• n. 2 ; preferable to beauty, 438, 

n. 4. 
Monkey's teeth, worship of, 35, n. 1. 
Monk, General George, 54, n. 4 ; 

381, n. 1. 
Monstrous births alluded to, 136, 

n. 3. 
Montaigne, playing with his cat, 5 ; 

alluded to, 172 and n. 4. 
Moon, full of the, 10 ; suppositions 

respecting it, 28, n. 2 ; 214 and 

n. 3 ; man in the, 221 and n. 3 ; 



her diameter, 222 and n. 1 ; sup- 
posed seas in the, 222 and n. 2 ; 
to detach from her sphere, 236 
and n. 1 ; shooting at the, 230, 
n. 2 ; a new world in the, 242 
and n. 2 ; embracing the, 270, 
n. 2 ; its influence, 314 and n. 2. 

Moralities and mysteries, 27, n. 4. 

Morality, a crime, 313 andn. 2. 

More, Sir Thomas, anecdote of 
his barber, 23, n. 4. 

Morpion, 284 and n. 1. 

Mother-wits, 429 and n. 1. 

Mountains, thrashing them, 341 
and n.3. 

Muggletonians, 183, n. 1. [n. 3. 

Mum and silence, 385 andn.l;406, 

Mum-budget, 93, n. 3. 

Munson, Lady, whips her husband, 
168 and n. 7. 

Muscovite women, their obsequious- 
ness, 449 and n. 1. 

Music, invention of, according to 
Pythagoras, 11, n. 4; its power 
said to cure diseases, 92, n. 1 ; 
of the spheres, 159 and n. 1. 

Mysteries and Revelations, 183 and 
n. 4. 

Napier's bones, 257 and n. 5 ; 344 

and n. 2. 
Nash, Dr, his remarks relative to 

Butler, Life, xvi, xxiv. 
Nativity, casting a, 28, n. 5. 
Neal, Sir Paul, 214, n. 2; 262, n. 1 ; 

particulars respecting, 265, n. 3. 
Nebuchadnezzar, 424 and n. 1. 
Necromantic art, 213 and n. 5. 
Negus, king of Abyssinia, 144 and 

n.3. 
Nero and Sporus, 198 and n. 5. 
New England, brethren of, 190 

and n. 1 . 
Newport, Treaty of, 184, n. 1 ; 377. 
Nicked, or hedged in, 379 and n. 1 
Nimmers, 257 and n. 4. 
Nine-pence, proverb respecting, 

23, n. 3. 
Nock, date of, 16 ; signification o f 

the word, 16, n. 3. 
Noel, Sir Martin, 385, n. 2 



464 



Noses, to hear with, 395 and n. 3. 

Numbers, said to exist by them- 
selves, 27, n. 1 ; supposed mys- 
tical charms in, 27, n. 2 ; ridi- 
cule of the poetical way of ex- 
pressing, 77, n. 2. 

Nuncheon, or luncheon, 18 and 
n. 3. 

Nye, Philip, an Independent 
preacher, 353 and n. 2 ; particu- 
lars respecting, 429 and n. 5. 

Oaths, on the use of, by the "Ro- 
mans, 57, n. 2 ; required to be 
taken by the clergy, 68, n. 1 ; are 
but words, 176 and n. 1 ; on the 
breaking of, 177 and n. 3 ; 178, 
n. 1 ; 188 and n. 2 ; 214 and n. 
1 ; ex-ofhcio, 185 and n. 3. 

Obs and Sollers, 377 and n. 2. 

Ockham, William, 10, n. 4. 

CEstrum, 62 ; signification of the 
word, 62, n. 1. 

Ombre, a game at cards, 304 and 
n. 3. 

Omens, 241, n. 4. 

One of us, 312 and n. 2. 

Outgoings, a cant term, 347 and 
n. 3. 

Out loiter and out sit, 363 and 
n. 3. 

Opera, anti-christian, 203 and 
n. 1. 

Oppugne, 99 and n. 2. 

Orange-tawny beard, 205 and n. 3. 

Orcades, the, 354 and n. 2. 

Ordeal, trial by, 270 and n. 3. 

Ordinance, the Self-denying, 78, n. 
3 ; 87, n. 5 ; 357 and n. 3. 

Orpheus, 227, 373. 

Orsin, the bearward, character of, 
48 and n. 2; 53; alluded to, 
92, 94, 95, 107, 109. 

Otway, his Tragedy of Constantine 
the Great, Life, ix. 

Outgoings and workings-out, cant 
terms, 347, n. 3. 

Ovation, 201 and n. 4. 

Ovid's Metamorphoses, alluded to, 
130, n. 1, 2. 

Owen, Dr, letter of, 123, n. 3 ; an 



eminent Presbyterian divine, 353 
and n. 2. 
Owl, a bird of ill omen, 241 and n. 
5 ; the emblem of wisdom, 245 
and n. 5. 

Padder's face, 365, 366 and n. 1. 
Pages, chastisement of, 189, n. 3. 
Palmistry, skill in, 260 and n. 6. 
Papacy and Presbytery, 126 and 

n. 3. 
Paper -lanthorn, penance in a, 168 

andn. 1. 
Papists, report respecting the, 347, 

n. 4. 
Paracelsus, 224 ; doctrines of, 224 

and n. 1 ; his small devil, .237, 

n. 3; 238, n. 1. 
Paradise, the seat of, 11 and n. 1 ; 

birds of, 229 and n. 1. 
Paris Gardens, Southwark, 49 and 

n. 2. 
Parliament, drew up petitions to 

itself, 66; satire upon the, 80 

and n. 2 ; its arbitrary proceed- 
ing, 81, n. 4; public thanksgiv- 
ings offered by the, 87, n. 1 ; 

charges against the, 186, n. 4; 

taxes levied by, 360 and n. 4. 
Parricide, punishment of, 33, n. 4. 
Parthians, 429 and n. 4. 
Pasiphae, her amour Avith a bull, 

150, n. 3. 
Patches, black, custom of wearing, 

158, n. 6. 
Patrick, Dr, afterwards Bishop oi 

Ely, Life, xiii. 
Peas, called green hastings, 263, 

n. 3. 
Peccadillos, wooden, 319 and n. 2. 
Peers, obligations of, 181 and n. 1 ; 

honour of, 189, n. 1. 
Pendulum, its vibration, 255 and 

n. 1. 
Pennington, Alderman, 7, n. 1. 
Penny for your thoughts, 212 and 

n. 2. 
Penthesile, the Amazonian dame, 

57 and n. 1. 
Pepys' Diary, extracts from, 304 

and n. 3 ; 392, n. 2 



465 



Perkin Warbeck, his interview with 
Lady Catherine Gordon, 152, n. 5. 

Pemicion, 123; meaning of the 
word, 123, n. 1. 

Perreaud, tricks of the devil in his 
house, 217 and n. 1. 

Perry, Ned, an hostler, 60, n. 1. 

Petard, conjugal, 295, n. 1. 

Peter the Great, tax imposed bv, 
142, n. 3. 

Peters, Hugh, character of, 434. 

Petronel, 72 and n. 6. 

Pharos, a celebrated light-house, 
32. 

Pharsalian Plain, 44. 

Philip and Mary, shillings of, 292 
and n. 2. 

Philip, Sir Richard, drawn through 
a window by the ears, 308 and 
n. 3. 

Philistines, 378 and n. 4. 

Philosopher's Stone, 280, n. 2. 

Philter-love, 440 and n. 3. 

Physician, his prescription literally 
taken, 28, n. 4. 

Picqueer, 345 and n. 4. 

Pie-powder, 185 and n. 2. 

Pigeons of Aleppo, 137, n. 6. 

Pigs, squeaking of, 6 ; sucking 
ones chowsed, 214 and n. 6 ; said 
to see the wind, 372 and n. 1. 

Pigsney, 156 ; a term of endear- 
ment, 156, n. 4. 

Pilgrims' kisses, 367 and n. 1. 

Pinder, the, of Wakefield, 193, n. 4. 

Pique, or Pica, 360 and n. 1. 

Plague-sore, 312 and n. 3. 

Planets, aspects of the, 251, n. 3. 

Plants, with signatures, 280 and n. 
4 ; 297 and n. 2. 

Plato, his fondness for geometry, 
247 and n. 4; his belief in re- 
gard to the planets, 248 and n. 
4 ; the symposium of, 296, n. 3 ; 
his year, 364 and n. 1. 

Plot, Dr, his History of Worcester, 
'217 and n. 4. 

Pocock, Dr, his acquittal, 123, 
n. 3. 

Poetry, a necessary aid in good 
government, 58, n. 4. 



Poets and Enthusiasts, 24, n. 3. 
Poets succeed best in fiction, 159, 
n. 3. 

Poisons, expelled by themselves, 
331 and n. 1. 

Pokes and Fobs, 273 and n. 3. 

Pomerium, ceremony of enlarging 
the, 196 and n. 4. 

Pope of Rome, 95 and n. 3 ; his 
bull baited, 122 and n. 3; his 
chair, 128, n. 2; alluded to, 249 
and n. 4 ; his power, 355 and 
n. 1. 

Pope, Mr, quoted 299, n. 3. 

Postulate illation, 164, n. 1. 

Potosi, 280 and n. 2. 

Poundage, paying of, 338 and n. 3. 

Powder, the famous sympathetic, 
51, n. 3, 6; alluded to, 306 and 
n. 1. 

Powdering-tubs, 366 and n. 4 ; 402 
and n. 1. 

Preach, fight, pray, and murder, 
331 and n. 4. 

Preachers, described by Echard, 
204 and n. 2 ; Itinerant, 330 and 
n. 4. 

Preaching, encouragement of, 59, 
n. 5. 

Presbyterians, jargon and cant 
words of the, 3, n. 3 ; effect of 
their preaching, 3, n. 5 ; custom 
of the, 4, n. 3 ; great fatalists, 
38, n. 1 ; profane familiarity of 
their prayers, 65, n. 4 ; historical 
tendency of their discourses, 66, 
n. 1 ; reformation desired by the, 
67, n. 5 ; their plea for success, 
79, n. 3 ; persecutions of the, 
122, n. 1 ; their doctrines, 125, 
n. 1 ; 133, n. 2 ; complaint of 
the, 145, n. 4 ; their selfishness, 
273, n. 3 ; their differences with 
the Independents, 324, n. 2 ; 348 
and n. 3 ; plea of the, 326, n. 1 ; 
their plots to restore the king, 
359 and n. 1, 2 ; intentions of 
the, 369, n. 1 ; their practices, 
369, n. 3, 4, and 5. 

Prester, John, 445 and n. 1. 

Pricking at the garter, 343, n. 4. 
2 H 



466 



Pride and Hughson, 377 and n. 4. 
Prideaux, Ed., Advocate, 415, n. 2. 
Prior, compared to Butler, Life, 

xix. 
Priscian's head, 181 and n. 5 ; 

182, n. 1. 
Prisoners, Roman, chained to their 
gaolers, 288 and n. 2 ; sham ex- 
aminations of, 365, n. 4. 
Profligate, 109 and n. 2. 
Proletarii, or low class of Roman 

people, 32, n. 4. 
Promethean powder, 107 and n. 1. 
Prophecies, fulfilling of the, 338 

and n. 2. 
Proserpine, 283. 

Protestation, the, or solemn vow, 

34; 63 and n. 1; 178 and n. 2. 

Providence, revolts of, 383 and 

n. 2. 
Prynne. alluded to, 30, n. 1 ; 263, n. 
2; 325, n. 2; 329, n. 1; his His- 
trio-mastix, 35, n. 6 ; sentenced 
to lose his ears, 91, n. 3 ; 366, 
n. 3. 
Psalms, reading a verse from the, 
271 and n. 1; alluded to, 341 
and n. 1, 2. 
Public Faith, 180 and n. 3, 4. 
Pug-Robin, 317 and n. 2. 
Puisne Judge, 415, n. 3. 
Pull a crow, 193 and n. 2. 
Pullen, 214 and n. 5. 
Pulpit, news told in the, 405 and 

n. 2. 
Punese, 284 and n. 1. 
Puppet-shows, subjects of, 27 n. 4. 
Puppies, remarkable, 138 and 

n. 4. 
Purchas's Pilgrims, 48, n. 3, 4. 
Puritans, custom of the, 3, n. 6 ; 

their doctrines, 79, n. 6. 
Purses, mode of wearing, 70, n. 3. 
Purtenance, 97 and n. 1. 
Pygmalion, cut his mistress out of 

stone, 97 and n. 3. 
Pym, John, 63, n. 4; 422, n. 4. 
Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, cured his 
courtiers with a kick, 144 and 
n. 2. 
Pythagoras, the Greek philosopher, 



music said to.be invented by, 

11, n. 4; philosophy of, 27, n. 

2 ; on the music of the spheres, 

159, n. 1 ; alluded to, 239 and 

n. 1 ; the soul of, 291. 
Quack story from Menckenius, 

228, n. 4. 
Quacks of Government, 341 and 

n. 6. 
Quakers, will not swear, 181 and 

n. 4. 
Quatenus oath, 184. 
Querpo, 401 ; meaning of the word, 

n. 2. 
Questions and commands, game of, 

304 and n. 4, 6. 
Quiblet or Quillet, 421, n. 4. 
Quint, 387 ; meaning of the word, 

387, n. 1. 
Quirks and quillets, 421 and n. 4. 

Rabbins, their writings, 184 and 
n. 2 ; of the Synod, 194, n. 3. 

Rabelais, alluded to, 10, n. 2. 

Races, in Italy, 393, n. 1. 

Raise, a favourite expression, 191 
and n. 2. 

Ralpho, his profession, 22 ; his 
gifts, 23 ; his learning, 25 ; con- 
demns bear-baiting, 35 ; com- 
pares them to Synods, 36; re- 
connoitres the rabble, 46 ; en- 
counters Colon, 74 ; is dismounted 
by Magnano, 74 ; takes Crowdero 
prisoner, 77 ; his speech on giving 
quarter, 80 ; his second expedi- 
tion with Hudibras, 101 ; is as- 
sailed by Orsin, 102 ; encounters 
Cerdon, 104; encourages Hu- 
dibras, 104 ; assists him to re- 
mount, 106 ; is thrown from his 
horse, 107 ; demands assistance 
of Hudibras, 110; is made cap- 
tive along with Hudibras, 117 ; 
is placed in the stocks, 118 ; 
blames the Knight's rashness, 
120; reviles Synods, 121; his 
abuse of human learning, 131 
proves perjury a less sin than 
flagellation, 175 ; maintains that 
saints are privileged to commit 



467 



perjury, 176 ; proves that saints 
may be punished by proxy, 189 ; 
refuses to suffer as the Knight's 
proxy, 192 ; defies the Knight, 
193 ; prepares to combat him, 
193 ; is alarmed by the approach 
of the Skimmington, 196 ; ex- 
plains the nature of the proces- 
sion, 200 ; is assaulted bv the 
rabble, 205 ; flies, 206 ; advises 
the Knight to consult Sidrophel, 
214 ; proves that saints may em- 
ploy conjurors, 215 ; his dialogue 
■with Whachum, 232 ; is despatch- 
ed to fetch a constable, 255 : is 
abandoned by Hudibras, 261 ; 
resolves to retaliate, 273 ; dis- 
covers the Knight's treachery to 
the widow, 273 ; je ?rs the Knight, 
in the character of a spirit, 314 ; 
carries him off, 323 ; is recog- 
nised by Hudibras, 398 ; reveals 
the trick played on the Knight, 
399 ; his reasons for flight, 402 ; 
defends the practice of running 
away, 404; advises the Knight 
to take the law of the widow, 
410. 

Ranters, a vile sect, 131, n. 1. 

Rap and rend, 204 and n. 1. 

Rationalia, 129. 

Ravens and crows, birds of ill 
omen, 241, n. 4. 

Ray's Handbook of Proverbs, 138, 
n. 2. 

Recant, 173 and n. 3. 

Records, felony to raze, 287 and 
n. I. 

Recruits, 333 and n. 4. 

Red -coat seculars, 338 and n. 5. 

Red-coat sentinel, 374 and n. 3. 

Reformado Saint, 176 and n. 2; 
330 and n. 3. 

Reformado soldier, 198 and n. 2. 

Reformation, 67. 

Rem in re, 290. 

Remonstrance, carried. 363 and 
n. 3. 

Replevin, 436 and n. 1 . 

Reprobation, Presbyterian doctrine 
of, 322, n. 2. 



Revie, meaning of the word, 134, 

n. 3. 
Rhetoric, use of, 7 and n. 5. 
Rhodoginus, Ludovicus Caelius, 199 

and n. 2. 
Ribbons, bits of, swallowed, 167 

and n. 4. 
Richard III., indignities offered to 

his corpse, 107, n. 3. 
Rimmon, 358 ; a Syrian idol, 358, 

n. 4. 
Rinaldo, 409 and n. 3. 
Ring, a tool of matrimony, 339 and 

n. 2. 
Rockets and white sleeves, 349 and 

n. 3. 
Rogues, beat hemp, 227 and n. 2. 
Rowland, William, Life, ii. 
Rolf, a shoemaker, indicted for a 

design to kill the king, 368, n. 1. 
Rolls, Colonel, a Devonshire gentle- 
man, 2, n. 1. 
Romance-writers, satire on, 91, n. 4. 
Rome, the Church of, compared to 

the Whore of Babylon, 127, n. 2. 
Romulus, the first Roman king, 335 

and n. 4. 
Ronsard's " Franciade," 2, n. 2. 
Rooks, application of the term, 7, 

n. 3. 
Root and branch men, 340 and n. 6. 
Rope-ladders, use of, 343 and n. 3. 
Rope of sand, 10. 
Rose, under the, 385, n. 1 ; the, 

planted, 443 and n. 2. 
Rosemary, virtues of, 167 and n. 2. 
Rosewell, Sir Henry, 2, n. 1. 
Rosicrucians, a sect of hermetical 

philosophers, 26, n. 2 ; 236 and 

n. 3 ; 238. 
Ross, Alexander, 42 and n. 2 ; 199 

and n. 2. 
Rota club, 258 and n. 2. 
Roundway Down, battle of, 62, n. 

2; 405, n. 4; 406, n. 5. 
Rovers, love-arrows shot at, 302 

and n. 2. 
Royalists, encomium on, 333 and 

n. 1 ; plots of the, 376 and n. 2. 
Royal Society, their transactions 

ridiculed, 224, n. 3. 
2h 2 



468 



Rules, how derived, 132. 

Ramp Parliament, patents granted 
by, 50, n. 1 ; alluded to, 337 and 
n. 3 ; proceedings of the, 380 
and n. 1 ; some account of the, 
390, n. 2. 

Rumps, burning of the, 392, n. 2. 

Rupert, Prince, 105, n. 1 ; his drop 
described, 188, n. 3. 

Russel, Sir William, Life, i. 

Rye, 284. 

Ryves, Dr Bruno, 14, n. 2. 

Sabines, rape of the, 431 and n. 3 ; 
432, n. 2, 3. 

Sacrilege, 353 and n. 1. 

Sacrum, 390 and n. 1. 

St Dunstan, 236 ; particulars re- 
specting, 236, n. 4. 

St Francis, his stoicism under fe- 
male temptation, 149, n. 7. 

St George and the Dragon, 54, n. 4. 

St Ignatius, 351 and n. 6. 

St Martin's beads, 438 and n. 2. 

«St Paul's, Covent Garden, Butler 
buried at, Life, xiii ; monument 
to his memory in, xiv. 

Saints, 62 and n. 4 ; privilege of, 
176, 177 ; scandals of the, 319 and 
n. 4 ; if named from blood, 322 
and n. 3 ; surnames of, 340 and 
n. 3 ; precious and secret, 356 
and n. 2 ; their houses and em- 
ployments in heaven, 427, n. 1. 

Saints' bell, 310, n. 1. 

Salique law, 448 and n. 2. 

Salt, cast on a woman's tail, 146 
and n. 3. 

Saltinbancho, 254 and n. 2. 

Samson, his heart-breakers, 15. 

Sancho-Panza, tossed in a blanket, 
75 and n. 2. 

Sand-bags, fight with, 329 and n. 2. 

Sandys, remark of, 52, n. 2. 

Sapiens dominabitur astris, ex- 
plained, 29, n. 1. 
Saturn, the god of time, 233 and 

n. 4. 
Satyre Menippee, Life, xx. 
Scaliger, 249 and n. 1. 
Sceptics, theory of the, 191 and n. 1. 



School divines, satire upon, 10, 

n. 4. 
Schweidnitz, the siege of, 52, n. 4. 
Scire facias, 305 and n. 2 ; 328. 
Sconce, enchanted, 275 and n. 4. 
Scorpion's oil, 368 and n. 2. 
Scots, declaration of the, 64, n. 1 ; 

to be treated like witches, 136, 
n. 1 ; their expeditions, 378 and 
n. 3, 4. 
Scout, 278 and n. 4. 
Screen-fans, 243 and n. 3. 
Scrimansky, 52. 
Scripture, interpretation of, 181 and 

n. 3. 
Secrecy, obligation of, 152 and 

n. 2. 
Sedgwick, a fanatical preacher, 231 

and n. 3. 
Seekers and Muggletonians,183,n. 1. 
Selden, his Marmora Arundelliana, 

Life, iv ; his opinion regarding 

America, 44, n. 2. 
Semiramis, the first maker of 

eunuchs, 162 and n. 2. 
Set, 290 ; meaning of the word, 

290, n. 4. 
Setter, 441 ; definition of the term, 

441, n. 3. 
Shaftesbury, A. A. Cooper, Earl of, 

342, n. 2 ; particulars respecting, 

342, n. 3; his duplicity, 342, 

n. 4. 
Shakspeare, allusions to his Plays, 

19, n. 4 ; 78, n. 2 ; 90, n. 2 ; 95, n. 

4; 131, n. 2; 135, n. 2; 136, n. 1, 

2; 138, n. 2; 147, n. 3; 153, n. 

2; 159 andn. 1; 160, n. 1; 195, 

n. 3 ; 205, n. 3 ; 246, n. 2 ; 248, 

n. 3; 252; 259, n. 2, 4; 274 

and n. 3; 280, n. 1 ; 293, n. 3; 

301 and n. 2 ; 317, n. 3 ; 343 and 

h. 4 ; 349 and n. 1 ; 366, n. 4 ; 

399, n. 1 ; 419 and n. 1, 2. 
Sherfield, Mr, mortgages his estate, 

321 and n. 4. 
Shooting at the moon, Des Cartes' 

notion about, 230, n. 2. 
Shoe-tie, 275 and n. 1. 
Shrews, female, custom of ducking, 

202, n. I. 



4G9 



Sidney, Sir Philip, 49, n. 4; 93, 
n. J. 

Sidrophel, his character, 218 ; mis- 
takes a paper-kite for a star, 229 ; 
is visited by Hudibras, 231 ; dis- 
covers the object of his visit, 233, 
234 ; defends the science of as- 
trology, 238, 240, 245 ; his alter » 
cation with Hudibras, 254; at- 
tacks the Knight, 254; is defeated 
and plundered, 256 ; counterfeits 
death, 259; Hudibras' s epistle 
to, 262 ; 421, n. 3. 

Sieve and Sheers, the oracle of, 234 
and n. 2. 

Silk-worms, belief respecting, 295, 
n. 2. 

Simeon to Levi, 127 and n. 4. 

Sisters, the fatal, 16. 

Skimmington, some account of ihe, 
196 andn.3; 316, n. 1. 

Skipper, 318 ; the master of a 
sloop, 318, n. 3. 

Skull, trepanning of the, 262 and 
n. 2. 

Sleeves and hose, slashed, 8, n. 1 ; 
313 and n. 1. 

Slubberdegullion, 114; a drivelling 
fool, 114, n. 4. 

Smeck, canonical cravat of, 124 
and n. 5. 

Smectymnus, 194 and n. 1. 

Snippets, 246 and n. 2. 

Snuff, enlightened, 23 and n. 5. 

Snuff-mundungus, 367 and n. 3. 

Socrates, 129 and n. 5 ; 224, n. 5. 

Soldier, paid 6c?. per day, 154 and 
n. 5 ; curious privilege of the, 
197, n. 1 ; carried off by the 
devil, 217 and n. 5. 

Solemn League and Covenant, 33, 
n. 1 ; 62, 67, n. 2, 4 ; 68, n. 2 ; 
178, n. 4 ; 318 and n. 4 ; 348 and 
n. 1. 

Somerset, Protector, 42, n. 4. 

Sooterkin, 332, and n. 2. 

Soothsayers, mistakes of, 250 and 

n. 5. 
Sophy, 318 andn. 1. 
Sorbonist, 10, n. 5. 
Souse and Chitterlings, 46 and n. 7. 



South, Dr, sermon of, 124, n. 1. 
Sow, wrong, by the ear, 235 and n. 

2 ; suckled by a bitch, 264 and 

n. 2. 
Sow-geldering, 1 62, 352. 
Sowning, 153 and n. 3. 
Spaniard, whipped, 21 and n. 1. 
Spanish dignity, 21, n. 1. 
Specieses, 225. 

Speed and Stowe, 199 and n. 4. 
Spenser, his " Fairy Queen," 2, n. 

1 ; 86, n. 1 ; 231, n. 1 ; 248, n. 

1 ; example of, 85, n. 1. 
Spick and span, derivation of the 

words, 100, n. 3. 
Spinning-wheels, 201 and n. 3. 
Spirit Po, 316 and n. 4. 
Sports, on Sundays, 32, n. 1. 
Sprat's history of the Royal Society, 

245, n. 3. 
Spurs, badges of Knighthood, 165, 

n. 2. 
Squirt-fire, 374 and n. 4. 
Staffiers, 198 and n. 3. 
Stars, new, appearance of, 229 and 

n. 2 ; falling, notion respecting, 

231 and n. 2 ; office of the, 246 

and n. 1. 
State-camelion, 343 and n. 1. 
Statute, 439 and n. 1. 
Staving and tailing, 90 and n. 1. 
Steal me from myself, 316 and n. 2. 
Stennet, the wife of a broom-man, 

149 and n. 6. 
Stentrophonic voice, 277 and n. 5. 
Stercorary chair, 128, n. 2. 
Stery, one of Cromwell's chaplains, 

335 and n. 2 ; his dream, 335, 

n. 3. 
Stiffer, pun upon the word, 346 and 

n. 2. 
Stiles and Nokes, 120 and n. 1. 
Stirrups, not in use in Cresar's time, 

21, n. 3. 
Stocks, humorously described, 83 

and n. I ; a wooden jail, 139 and 

n. 4. 
Stoics, doctrines of the, 173, n. 1 

2 ; 298, n. 2. 
Stone, angelical, 237, n. 4. 
Stools of repentance, 320. 



470 



Strafford, Lord, 63, n. 3 ; G9. n. 1 ; 

228, n. 2; 422, n. 4. 
Stray cattle, 161 and n. 7. 
Strike my luck, 156 and n. 1. 
Stragglings, a cant term for efforts, 

202 and n. 4. 
Stum, 157 ; an unfermented liquor, 

157, n. 1. 
Stygian sophister, 255 and n. 4. 
Succussation, meaning of the word, 

43, n. 5. 
Suggilled, 119 and n. 2. 
Sui Juris, 118 and n. 3. 
Summer-sault, 419 and n. 6. 
Sun, put down by ladies' eyes, 169 ; 

voids a stone, 243, n. 2 ; shifted 

his course, 248 and n. 1. 
Surplices, Camisade of, 338 and 

n. 7. 
Swaddle, 4; meaning of the word, 

4, n. 6. 
Swanswick, barrister of, 329 and 

n. 1. 
Swearing, trade of, 420 and n. 4. 
Sweating-lanterns, 243 and n. 3. 
Swedes, 197; famous soldiers, 197 ; 

n. 4. 
Swiss mercenaries, 412, n. 2. 
Swift, Dean, his Tale of a Tub, 211 ; 

n. 2 ; 226, n. 2. 

Tailors, their mode of sitting at 

work, 22 and n. 5. 
Tails, 163; theory about, 163, 

n. 1. 
Tales, 421 and n. 1. 
Talgol, the butcher, his prowess, 

53 and n. 4; defies Hudibras, 

69 ; engages in single combat 

with him, 72 ; dismounts him, 

75. 
Taliacotius, his supplemental noses, 

16 and n. 2. 
Talisman, magic, 25 ; described, 

25, n. 1. 
Talismanique louse, 283 and n. 2. 
Tallies, 358 and n. 2. 
Tarsel, 228 and n. 6 
Tartar, catching a, 114 and n. 1. 
Tassoni, Alessandro, his Secchia 

Rapita, Life, xix. 



Taurus, once the Ram, 25J. 

Tawe, 168 and n. 4. 

Taylor, John, his marble tablet to 

the memory of Butler, Life, 

xv. 
Teach down, 330 and n. 5. 
Te Deum, 405 and n. 3. 
Tell-clock, the nickname of a puisne 

judge, 415, n. 3. 
Tellus, Dame, 60 and n. 5. , 
Templars, poverty of the, 331, 

n. 3. 
Temple, Sir Wm, observation of, 

45, n. 1. 
Termagant, 57 ; origin of the word, 

57, n. 3. 
Testes, the, furnish a medicinal 

drug, 43, n. 3. 
Teutonic, said to be the most an 

cient language, 11, n. 2. 
Thanksgivings, public, sometimes 

mere pretences, 405, n. 5. 
That you 're a beast, and turned to 

grass, 436. 
There was an ancient sage phi- 
losopher, 42. 
Thetis, the lap of, 173 and n. 3. 
Things, the nature of, 9, n. 4 ; ani 

mate and inanimate, difference 

between, 129 and n. 4. 
Thirteener, a coin, 358, n. 1. 
Thompson, Mrs, a widow, 96, n. 1. 
Thoth, the Egyptian Deity, 238, 

n. 5. 
Thumb-ring, 339 and n. 3. 
Thunder, opinion respecting, 350 

and n. 1. 
Thyer, Mr, the editor of Butler's 

Remains, Life, v, xvi. 
Time, picture of, 15, n. 1 ; of day, 

232 and n. 3. 
Time is, Time was, 278 and n. 2. 
'Tis strange how some men's tem- 
pers suit, 172. 
Titus Andronicus, Play of, 15'J 

n. 5. 
Tobacco-stopper, 230 and n. 5. 
Toe, quality in the, 144, n. 2. 
Toledo-blades, 18 and n. 4. 
Tollutation, meaning of the word, 

43, n. 4. 



471 



Tomlinson, Judge, his speech to 
the sheriffs, 26, n. 6. 

Tom Po, a name for a spectre, 316, 
n.4. 

Tooth-ache, charms for the, 223 
and n. 3. 

TottLpottimoy, 190 and n. 3. 

Toy, John, Life, ii. 

Treason, punishments for, 391, 
n. 1. 

Trees, diseases of, 264. 

Trepanners, 303. 

Triers, 123; office of the, 123, n. 
3 ; called Cromwell's Inquisition, 
124, n. 1. 

Trigons, the, 250 and n. 4. 

Trismegistus, 238 and n. 5 ; 
239. 

Trojan mare, 346 and n. 5. 

Trout, caught with a single hair, 
211 and n. 1. 

Trover, action of, 418 and n. 2. 

Truckle-bed, 119 and n. 4; 174 
and n. 1 . 

Trulla, beloved by Magnano, 56 
and n. 5 ; her valour, 57 ; res- 
cues the bear, 90 ; attacks Hu- 
dibras, 111 ; takes him prisoner, 
113; grants him quarter, 115; 
protects him from the rabble, 
116; her triumphal procession, 
117; commits Ralpho and Hu- 
dibras to the stocks, 118. 

Trustees, unsanctifled, 330 and 
n. 1. 

Truth, revealed to the perfect, 82, 
n. 1 ; Time's daughter, 239 and 
n.4; 240, n. 1. 

Tully, 172 and n. 4. 

Turks, their personal appearance, 
52, n. 2. 

Tutbury, custom of bull-running 
at, 47, n. 4. 

Tyburn, executions at, 63, n. 6. 

Tyrian petticoat, 200, n. 3. 

Urine, a medium of detecting dis- 
eases, 225, n. 4. 

Uses, in sermons, 330 and n. 6. 

Usher, 139 ; meaning of the term, 
139, n. 5. 



Utlegation, 321 and n. 5. 
Uxbridge, treaty of, 378 and n. 2. 

Vagrants, ordered to be whipped, 

166, n. 1. 
Van and rear, 142, n. 4. 
Van Helmont, 172 and n. 4. 
Varlets - des - chambres, 151 and 

n. 4. 
Vaughan, Dr, his discourse on the 

c6ndition of man, 26, n. 1. 
Vehicles, heavenly, 446 and n. 1. 
Velis et remis, omnibus nervis, 67 

and n. 1. 
Venables and Pen, their expedition 

against the Spaniards, 408, n. 4. 
Venice, Dukes of, marry the sea, 

202 and n. 2. 
Veni, vidi, vici, 110 and n. 1. 
Venus, the goddess of love, 233 and 

n. 2. 
Vere adeptus, 26. 
Vermin, 326 and n. 3. 
Vertagus, a dog so called, 98, 

n. 5. 
Vespasian, daubed with dirt, 207 

and n. 4. 
Vessel, 2S5 and n. 3. 
Vickars, John, 30 and n. 1. 
Victories, pretended thanksgivings 

for, 405 and n. 4. 
Victuallers and vintners, fines im- 
posed on, 416 and n. 5. 
Vies, the proud, 62 and n. 2. 
Villains, 289 and n. 3. 
Vinegar, eels in, 225 and n. 1. 
Virgins, -buried alive, 151, n. 1. 
Virtue, said to be a body, 173 and 

n. 1, 2 ; and Honour, the temple 

of, 165 and n. 3. 
Vis. franc, pledge, 185 and n. 4. 
Vitilitigation, 128 and n. 4. 
Vizard-bead, 304 and n. 5. 
Vizard-masks, 294 and n. 3. 
Vultures, opinion respecting, 211 

and n. 5. 

Wait, Simon, a tinker, 55, n. 3 ; 

his skill, 56 and n. 2. 
Walker's History of Independency, 

62, n. 4: 70, n.4; 96, n. 1. 



472 



Waller, his poem of Saccharissa, 

159, n. 3. 
Waller, Sir William, defeat of, 62, 

n. 2 ; 405, n. 4. 
Walnut-shell, fire spit out of a, 223 

and n. 5. 
Walton, Izaak, poem quoted, 84, 

n. 2. 
War, civil, subverts the order of 

things, 240, n. 2 ; creating and 

making of, 360 and n. 3; the 

modern way of, 407 and n. ] . 
Warburton, Bishop, 132, n. 2. 
Warmestry, afterwards Dean of 

Worcester, Life, ii. 
Warts, charmed away, 223 and 

n. 2. 
Watches, pendulums to, 284 and 

n. 2. 
Water, objects reflected in, 270 and 

n. 1. 
Water-rat, 408 and n. 2. 
Wedlock, without love, 147 and n. 3. 
Welkin, 137 and n. 5. 
Wesley, Samuel, lines by, Life, 

xv. 
Westminster Abbey, monument to 

the memory of Butler in, Life, 

xiv. 
Whachum, Sidrophel's zany, cha- 
racter of, 225 and n. 2; 227, 231, 

232, 233, 253, n. 4; 254, 256, 

258, 259. 
Whale, 230 ; with legs, 230, n. 6. 
Whetstones, 138 ; meaning of the 

term, 138, n. 2. 
Whifflers, 198 and n. 3. 
Whimsied chariots, 264, n. 4. 
Whinyard, signifies a sword, 102, 

n. 3; 103. 
Whipping, virtue's governess, 165 

and n. 5. 
Whipping-post, described, 83 and 

n. 2. 
Whitehall, cabal at, 347, n. 2. 
White-pot, 16. 

White, Thomas, 172 and n. 4. 
Whittington, legend of, 352 and 

n. 2. 
Whore of Babylon, 127 and n. 2 ; 

355 and n. 4. 



Widgeon, or Pigeon, 14, n. 1. 

Widow, the, beloved by Hudibras, 
96; conjectures respecting, 96; 
is informed of the Knight's cap- 
tivity, 139; sets out to visit him, 
139 ; her conference with him, 
142 ; recommends hanging, or 
drowning, 153 ; ridicules love- 
compliments, 157 ; eulogizes 
whipping, 165 ; releases Hudibras 
on terms, 169 ; is visited by Hu- 
dibras, 274 ; her interview with 
him, 275 ; exposes his falsehood, 
283; ridicules matrimony, 287, 
302 ; treats him with a masquer- 
ade of devils, 306; receives an 
epistle from the Knight, 424 ; her 
answer, 436. 

Widows, Indian, burnt on the fune- 
ral piles of their husbands, 290 
and n. 3. 

Wight, Isle of, negotiation in the, 
377, n. 5. 

Wind, in hypocondres pent, 244 
and n. 2. 

Windore, or window, 50; 151 and 
n. 6; 188._ 

Wines, working of, 146 and n. 4. 

Witches, said to ride upon broom- 
sticks, 89, n. 4 ; 283 and n. 1 ; 
their prayers said backwards, 98 
and n. 2; drawing blood of, 136 
and n. 1 ; thrown in water, 154, 
n. 2 ; make pictures to destroy, 
186, n. 3 ; of Lapland, sell bottled 
air, 187 and n. 3 ; persecution of, 
215 and n. 5; execution of, 216 
and n. 2 ; ghost of one, 282 and 
n. 1 ; crony, 309 and n. 3. 

Wither, George, a party writer, 30, 
n. 1. 

Withers, a puritanical officer, 217, 
n. 5. 

Witnesses, winding up of, 188 and 
n. 1 ; hireling, 422, n. 2. 

Wives, a dose of, 252 and n. 1. 

Wizards, on consulting, 211 and 
n. 3. 

Woman, piety and energy of, 203, 
n. 3. 
| Women, old, juries of, 286 and n. 



473 



2 ; assertion respecting, 298 and 
n. 2 ; will of, 339 and n. 4 ; in- 
fluence of, 446 and n. 2. 

Woodstock, treaty with the Devil 
at, 217 and n. 4. 

Worcester's Century of Inventions 
bantered, 395, n. 3. 

Words of second-hand intention, 
235 and n. 4. 

World's end, 231 and n. 1. 

Wounds, honourable ones, 90 and 
n. 2. 

Wright's Glossary, 137. 



Wycherley, Mr, Life, ii. 

Xerxes, whipped the sea, 167 and 
n. 1. 

Young, Dr James, his Sidrophel 
Vapulans, 210, n. 1. 

Zany, 225 ; a buffoon, 225, n. 2. 
Zodiac-constellations, 250 and n. 2. 
Zoroaster, 239, and n. 1 ; doctrine 
of, 327 and n. 2. 




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